Sports Physician - Athlete 1951
1951
East German Hans-Georg Aschenbach (1951-) won the gold medal ski jumping at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. In 1974, he had won the Four Hills Tournament and he became world champion in Swedish Falun, both on the normal and large hill. The year before he had crowned himself as world champion ski jumping. After the 1976 Olympics, he finished his sporting career and graduated as a sports teacher. At the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald he started medical studies. After graduating he became the team physician of the GDR ski jumpers and sports physician of the national team. During the 1988 Mattenspringen in West German Hinterzarten, he outwitted his guards and fled to the West. In an interview with the German weekly Bild am Sonntag, he revealed the doping practices of the GDR. Children and teenagers were doped without their parents knowing, and he himself had to swallow Oral-Turnabol. In Freiburg he was offered the job of Orthopedic Surgeon in the Mooswaldklinik of the West German sports physician Armin Klümper (1935-). In 1993 he settled as a GP doctor in Freiburg-Munzingen and in 2012 he published his biography 'Euer Held. Euer Verräter. Mein Leben für den Leistungssport ' (Your hero. Your traiter. My life for competitive sport).
1951
American skier Bob Cochran (1951-) partricpated from 1969 to 1974 at the World Cup Circuit and together with his sisters Marilyn (1950-), Barbara (1951-) and Lindy (1953-) he was selected for the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, where he challenged the down hill, the slalom and the giant slalom. In 1973 he won the combined event during the world famous Hahnenkamm Rennen in Kitzbühel and that same year the giant slalom at the World Cup in Heavenly Valley, California. In all, he crowned himself six times as an American champion. He graduated from the University of Vermont in Burlington and settled as a general practitioner in Keene, New Hampshire. His son Jimmy (1981-) also took part in the World Cup skiing.
1951
German sailor Jörg Diesch (1951-) won the gold medal in the Flying Dutchman with his brother Eckhart (1954) at the 1976 Olympics in Montréal,. Earlier that year he had conquered the bronze medal at the European Championships and World Championships. With his brother he crowned himself German champion in 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1980. That last year they were selected for the Moscow Olympics, but they could not participate due to the German boycott. He received a gold medal at the 1986 world championships, and received five silver medals and two bronze medals between 1975 and 1985, all with his brother Eckart. Diesch graduated in 1978, specialized in Orthopedic Surgery and started a practice in Kiel.
1951
American swimmer Gary Hall, Sr. (1951-) was three-time Olympic medalist and former world record holder in five events. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico he won the silver medal 400m medley and two years later he broke the world record 200m medley. In 1972 in Munich he earned the silver medal 200m butterfly and another four years later the bronze medal 100m butterfly at the Montréal Olympics. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and specialized in Ophthalmology. He started a practice in Phoenix, Arizona. His son Gary Hall Jr. was also a succesful Olympian, winning 5 golden, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympics.
1951
17-year-old American swimmer Jack Horsley (1951) won the bronze medal 200m backstroke at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati Medical School and specialized at the San Joaquin County Hospital of Stockton, California in Internal Medicine. In 1979 he settled in the Valley Clinic of Ellensburg where he was a specialist internal medicine for six years. In 1985 he was appointed medical director of the Emergency Department of the Kittitas Valley Community Hospital and in 1991 he combined this position with that of Assistant Professor of Health Sciences of the CWS Paramedics Program. Then he became medical director of the health center for students of Central Washington University.
