Karin Voss ( Enke, formerly Busch, Kania and Richter; born 20 June 1961) is a former

speed skater Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors racing, race each other in travelling a certain distance on Ice skate, skates. Types of speed skating are long-track speed skating, short-track speed skating, and marath ...

, one of the most dominant of the 1980s. She is a three-time Olympic gold medallist, winning the 500 metres in 1980, the 1000 metres in 1984 and the 1500 metres in 1984. She won a total of eight Olympic medals, representing

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

Short biography

Karin Enke started her sport career as a figure skater at the club SC Einheit

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. Representing East Germany she came in ninth place at the

European Figure Skating Championships The European Figure Skating Championships are an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union (ISU). Medals are awarded in single skating, men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. The ...

in 1977. Later she changed to speed skating. Dominant on all distances (being reigning World Allround Champion and World Sprint Champion, and having won German Single Distance Championships titles on all five distances in 1983), Enke was the favourite for all four distances at the

1984 Winter Olympics The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games (Serbo-Croatian language, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, Serbian Cyrillic: ; ) and commonly known as Sarajevo '84 (Serbian Cy ...

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ), ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'' is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 2 ...

, but she won "only" two gold and two silver medals. At the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

, Enke had 21 single-distance victories, but won only one overall World Cup. She retired from speed skating after the 1987–88 season. Born as ''Karin Enke'', she married in 1981 and competed as ''Karin Busch'' during the 1981–82 winter. The marriage did not last long and during the 1982–83 and 1983–84 winters, she competed as ''Karin Enke'' again. After marrying her longtime former trainer Rudolf Kania in 1984, she competed as ''Karin Kania'' for the rest of her speed skating career. After her career had ended, she divorced and married again and became ''Karin Enke-Richter''. Like several other female East German skaters who got married after the season had ended (and several of them more than once over the course of their careers), Enke caused some confusion among the speed skating public when she—a skater with a name unfamiliar to them—suddenly won major titles in her "first" season. To alleviate the confusion, Enke kept her

maiden name When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries and cultures that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" ...

as the ''first'' part of her last name after her third marriage, just like Gunda Kleemann (also known as ''Gunda Niemann'' and ''Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann'') kept ''Niemann'' (the name of her first husband) as the ''first'' part of her last name even after her divorce and both before and after her second marriage, which is unusual in most Western European countries.

Doping use

On 3 January 2010, Giselher Spitzer, a German sport historian and researcher of the

Humboldt University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

, claimed in the Dutch TV documentary ''Andere Tijden'' ('Other Times') that back in 1984, Karin Enke had been prepared with doping. He based his claim on

Stasi The Ministry for State Security (, ; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the (, an abbreviation of ), was the Intelligence agency, state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive pol ...

-documents, which were shown during the programme. Citation: " em Arztwar bekannt, dass Karin ENKE zu den Olympischen Spielen zu den ausgewählten Athleten gehörte, die mit erheblichen Mengen Testosteron und gleichzeitigen Gegenspritzen von Epitestosteron auf ihre Wettkämpfe vorbereitet würden." ("It was known to the medic, that Karin ENKE at the Olympic Games belonged to those athletes who were prepared for the Games with relevant measures of Testosteron and, synchronously, with contrasting measures of Epitosteron.")."Raadsel rondom Van Gennip en DDR-vrouwen opgelost"
Sportweek, 3 January 2010.

Medals

An overview of medals won by Enke at important championships she participated in, listing the years in which she won each:

World records

Over the course of her career, Enke skated 10

world records A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organizatio ...

Personal records

To put these personal records in perspective, the last column (''WR'') lists the official world records on the dates that Enke skated her personal records. Note that Enke's personal record on the 500 m was not a world record because Bonnie Blair skated 39.10 at the same tournament (the

1988 Winter Olympics The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Calgary 1988 were a multi-sport event held from February 13 to 28, 1988, with Calgary, Calgary, Alberta as the main host city. This marks the m ...

). Enke's personal record on the 1000 m was not a world record either because (again at the same 1988 Winter Olympics) Christa Rothenburger skated 1:17.65 – 0.05 seconds faster.

References

External links

Karin Enke at SkateResults.comKarin Enke at DESG (''Deutsche Eisschnelllauf Gemeinschaft'')
(in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Enke, Karin 1961 births Living people German female single skaters German female speed skaters Speed skaters at the 1980 Winter Olympics Speed skaters at the 1984 Winter Olympics Speed skaters at the 1988 Winter Olympics Olympic speed skaters for East Germany East German female speed skaters Medalists at the 1980 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 1984 Winter Olympics Medalists at the 1988 Winter Olympics Olympic medalists in speed skating Olympic gold medalists for East Germany Olympic silver medalists for East Germany Olympic bronze medalists for East Germany World record setters in speed skating Speed skaters from Dresden World Allround Speed Skating Championships medalists