Sports Physician - Athlete 1950

1950

East German swimmer Roland Matthes (1950-2019) won eight Olympic medals. He is generally considered the best backstroke swimmer of all time and he even got the nickname 'Rolls Royce of Swimming'. Between 1967 and 1974 nobody could beat him, he swam 21 world records and added four European and three world titles to his Olympic gold.

"He was not in the water, but on the water," an expert analyzed the particularly beautiful swimming style of Matthes.

He was able to move both legs 90 cm apart, something none of his competitors could do. He participated at the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics. After the latter he stopped swimming, the same year he married the other swimming legend Kornelia Ender (1958-), but six years later the couple divorced. While formerly used in GDR propaganda, he disappeared in anonymity. The East German propaganda machine resented his divorce and especially the fact that he was not docile. They threatened him to scrap him from his medical studies and he had to leave the house the state had given him after his victories. Matthes fell into a black hole that lasted until the fall of the wall. Even the crowd turned against him, throwing glass shards on his driveway and terrorizing him when he would go out to a gas station. He was blamed for being a privileged intimate of President Erich Honecker (1912-1994). In 1989 he moved to the West, where he graduated and specialized in Orthopedic Surgery. Matthes died at the end of 2019 after a long illness.

1950

Belgian athlete Renno Roelandt (1950-) won the 200m national championship in 1976 and 1978 and participated in the same year at the European Championships in Prague. After graduating from the Free University of Brussels, he specialized in Sports Medicine and Occupational Medicine. He accompanied for example the Belgian athletics team several times at international championships. He became a doping fighter and member of the anti-doping agency WADA. Roelandt was also vice-chairman of the Belgian Olympic and Interfederal Committee.

1950

American diver Richard Rydze (1950-) won the silver medal 10m tower jump at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh Medical School and settled as a general practitioner and sports physician. From 1985 to 2007 he was the team physician of the professional American football team Pittsburgh Steelers, but he came into the news negatively after he had prescribed a lot of athletes anabolics.

1950

German Heidi Schüller (1950-) became world famous when she was the first woman to take the Olympic oath in 1972. She herself took in Munich part in the 100m hurdles and the long jump. In the latter event she finished fifth. She graduated magna cum laude and specialized in anesthesia at the University of Cologne, where she became chief physician a few years later. She also presented several television shows: "Drei nach Neun", "Talk im Turm", "Club 2" and "Themenabende".