Sports Physician - Athlete 1943
1943
GDR gymnast Matthias Brehme (1943-) won five medals at Olympics, World Championships and European Championships, but he won also ten national titles. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico and the 1972 Olympics in Munich, he was captain of the bronze medal team. The same medal was also reserved for the GDR at the 1966 and 1970 World Cups in Dortmund and Ljubljana. He also won the individual silver medal on the pommel horse at the 1971 European Championship. He graduated in Leipzig and specialized in Neurology and Psychiatry. After the fall of the wall he started a practice in his hometown Markleberg.
1943
Gisela Engelhardt-Weiß (1943-) swam the 400m freestyle at the 1960 Olympics in Rome and won the bronze medal with the GDR relay team 4 x 100m freestyle. Trained by Dutchman Johann van Hemsbergen, she improved five times the national record 400m freestyle . Her 5.01.5 figured at the charts until 1963. The same year she stopped her swimming competition and started studying Medicine. She specialized in sports medicine and guided the Kinder- und Jugendsportschule from Leipzig until the fall of the wall. Afterwarts she started her own rehabilitation clinic.
1943
Csaba Fenyvesi (1943-2015) was three times Olympic champion. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico he won the gold medal with the Hungarian epee team. That victory was repeated four years later in Munich, but Fenyvesi also added the individual title epee. In 1970, 1971 and 1978 he became world champion with the Hungarian team. He graduated in 1968 and specialized in Surgery. He started his career in the clinic of the Hungarian Railways, but in 1974 he became oncological surgeon and adjunct Professor.
1943
Mária Frank (1943-1992) won the bronze medal with the Hungarian relay team 4 x 100m freestyle medal at the 1962 European Championships in Leipzig. At the 1960 Olympics in Rome, the quartet finished fourth and 16-year-old Frank was eliminated in the 400m freestyle series. She graduated as a medical doctor and became a respected pediatrician.
1943
Gail Hopkins (1943-) played more than one hundred games as first baseman and catcher with the Edmonton Oilers, the Chicago White Sox, the Kansas City Royals and the Los Angeles Dodgers in the American Major League Baseball. He then moved to Japan where he played for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp and the Nankai Hawks. He graduated from Rush Medical College and specialized in Orthopedic Surgery at the Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois. First he opened a practice in Lodi, California, then he moved to Hinsdale, Illinois and Parkersburg, West Virginia.
1943
Gerd Loßdörfer (1943-) was German champion 400m hurdles in 1966. He won the silver medal at the 1966 European Championships in Budapest. He graduated in Freiburg and specialized in Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine in Heidelberg. He served as an orthopedic surgeon in Mannheim and became the team physician of football club SV Waldhof Mannheim, who played in the Bundesliga from 1983 to 1990.
1943
Water polo player Wim Mosterd (1943-), was one of the Dutch athletes who, by a decision of the NOC, were obligated to stay home of the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, where the Dutch team had good medal chances. The reason for the Dutch boycott was the Soviet Union invasion in Hungary. Mustard was training in Vlaardingen with his team at the beginning of November. At that time there were no covered 50m pools and therefore water polo was only played in summer. In order to be able to prepare for the Games, the outdoor pool was heated with a steam locomotive. Later he went five more times to Olympics. He was a member of the medical staff of the Dutch team at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics in Tokyo and Mexico. Between 1988 and 1996 he was a member of the medical committee of the international swimming federation FINA. He graduated as a medical doctor, specialized in Cardiology and became the team physician of the Dutch football Association, where he supervised Johan Cruijff (1947-2016) among others. In 1988 he became the first professor Clinical Sports Medicine.
1943
In 1962 and 1964 Heinz-Ulrich Walther (1943-) became GDR figure skating champion with his former partner Brigitte Wokoeck (1946-). After the 1964 Winter Olympics. in Innsbruck, their roads separated, Walther continued to skate with Heidemarie Steiner (1944-), with whom he won the East German championship in 1966, 1967, 1969 and 1970. At the 1967, 1968 and 1970 European Championshipss the duo won the bronze medal and the same medal at the 1970 World Championships in Ljubljana. At the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble they finished fourth and in 1969 they married. Walther graduated from the Charité Universität in Berlin and specialized in Orthopedic Surgery.
