According to everything that modern training theory tells us, Klaus Wolfermann should never have become what he became, namely a javelin thrower. And certainly not a successful one. With his height of 1.76 meters, his weight of around 90 kilos and his beefy physique, he certainly did not correspond to the ideal image of this discipline: He was neither tall, nor was he slim, nor did he have long arms, so he was missing essentials Requirements for throwing the 800 gram piece of sports equipment far. But what Klaus Wolfermann had was “a train that just rushes,” as one contemporary witness remembers. He probably got this arm strength from his father, a blacksmith from the small Franconian town of Altdorf near Nuremberg. And with this move, “little Gstumperte,” as he described himself, achieved the greatest successes that a track and field athlete could achieve in the 1970s.
At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Klaus Wolfermann won the gold medal with a throw of 90.48 meters; The following year he changed two figures and set a world record of 94.08 meters. In both years he was voted Germany’s athlete of the year. Klaus Wolfermann died on Wednesday night at the age of 78, according to his family German press agency confirmed; Bavarian Radio had previously reported.
It was only two years ago that Wolfermann came into the public eye again. When the Munich Games celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2022 and the memory of the ’72 Olympics was revived, he was often asked to talk about that golden Sunday that has gone down in the history of the German Athletics Association (DLV) – from March 3rd to 2020 . September 1972.
Wolfermann had exceeded the 90-meter mark for the first time that year, but the big favorite for the Olympics was the Latvian Janis Lusis, who was competing for the Soviet Union, the 1968 Olympic champion and the European champion in 1962, 1966, 1969 and 1971. Just ahead of the Munich team By playing, Lusis had increased his world record to 93.80 meters. He also set the standards in the final and achieved 89.54 meters early on. In the fifth round, Wolfermann summoned all his strength and all his technique and the javelin rushed 90.48 meters.
The 80,000 people in the Olympic Stadium went wild; Klaus Wolfermann was something of a local hero. He wore the TSV 1860 Munich jersey for two years while studying sports before moving to SV Gendorf because he got a job as a sports teacher there.
90.46 meters. Klaus Wolfermann triumphed with a lead of just two centimeters
But Lusis had not yet been beaten, nor had he had a try, and in 1968 in Mexico City he had already won with the last throw. This time too it was to be his furthest, the javelin landed beyond the 90 meter mark. The 80,000 held their breath – and burst into indescribable cheers when the distance flashed on the scoreboard: 90.46 meters. Klaus Wolfermann had triumphed with a margin of just two centimeters, the width of a blacksmith’s thumb. He went to Janis Lusis and apologized for snatching the gold medal he thought was safe. The Latvian accepted it with a laugh and the rivals later became friends for life.
Wolfermann’s throw was followed by two more gold medals for the DLV within just an hour: by the 800-meter runner Hildegard Falck from Wolfsburg and the 50-kilometer walker Bernd Kannenberg from Fürth. It was a lavish party that was celebrated this Sunday in the Munich Olympic Stadium, and Klaus Wolfermann was lucky that things were still carefree and cheerful in Munich. Two days later, Palestinian terrorists attacked the Israeli team in the Olympic Village, killing 11 athletes and staff.
Just as Klaus Wolfermann didn’t correspond to the ideal image of a javelin thrower, he also didn’t correspond to the image that people generally have of Olympic heroes. With his stocky figure, his hair that was beginning to recede at a young age and his conservative full beard, he looked more “like the local savings bank official,” said the laudator when Wolfermann was inducted into the German sports hall of fame in 2011. There are few German athletes who are as closely associated with the 1972 Olympics as he is. “When the word comes to Munich, three names are always mentioned,” Klaus Wolfermann liked to say: “Heide Rosendahl, Ulrike Meyfarth and mine. I’m proud of that.”
Heide Rosendahl had won the first gold medal for the Federal Republic of Germany team in the long jump, and Ulrike Meyfarth, who was only 16 years old at the time, later jumped the highest.
He never won a medal at the European Championships, there were no World Championships back then and he missed the 1976 Olympics in Montreal because of an arm injury
You can’t achieve much more than an Olympic victory and a world record in athletics, and surprisingly, Wolfermann hasn’t achieved much more internationally. Although he was German champion six times in a row between 1969 and 1974, he never won a medal at the European Championships, there were no world championships at the time and he missed the 1976 Olympics in Montreal due to an arm injury. The train, which could rush so much, was stopped. He ended his career in 1978, when he was just 32 years old.
Of course, he remained connected to sport; he worked for a Franconian sporting goods manufacturer for a long time and later ran his own marketing agency. He also liked to use his fame for aid projects. His father, he also liked to say, gave him not only his physical talent but also a social streak on his life.
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