Ria Baran (; 2 November 1922 in

Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...

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– 12 November 1986) was a German pair skater. She skated together with Paul Falk and twice became

World The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...

champion and in 1952 Olympic champion. She was one of the oldest female figure skating Olympic champions. Ria Baran married Paul Falk during her active international figure skating. Therefore she is sometime listed as Ria Baran-Falk or Ria Falk. According to figure skating historian James R. Hines, they were known in the skating world as "the Falks". They were also world pair championships in roller skating. The pair skated for the club

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er EG and had no coach. They came in fourth place at the German National Championships in 1940. Their career was curtailed by

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

; they won Nationals when they were reinstated in 1947. Until 1951, when they won the European Championships, Baran and Falk were not able to participate in international competitions because Germany was excluded from the international sport after the war. Also in 1951, they won the World Championships over Americans Karol Kennedy and Peter Kennedy. In 1952, they won their second European and

titles, as well as a gold medal at the Olympics. They were the first couple which performed side by side double jumps and they also invented the Lasso-Lift. Baran and Falk were never defeated in amateur competition. Between 1950 and 1952 Ria Baran was voted 3 times running as the female athlete of the year in Germany. After winning the Olympics in 1952 they turned pro and worked for Holiday on Ice. They were elected to the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1993. Baran later worked as a

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Results

(pairs with Paul Falk)

References

* 1922 births 1986 deaths German female pair skaters Figure skaters at the 1952 Winter Olympics Olympic figure skaters for Germany Olympic gold medalists for Germany Olympic medalists in figure skating World Figure Skating Championships medalists European Figure Skating Championships medalists Medalists at the 1952 Winter Olympics Sportspeople from Dortmund 20th-century German sportswomen {{Germany-Winter-Olympic-medalist-stub