It is 30 years since Katarina Witt sizzled in Sarajevo to fulfil her dreams by winning gold at the Winter Olympics.
Now 48, she still has that glow, that gracefulness and glamorous look that made her the ice queen in an era where figure skating possessed pin-ups to rival stars from major sports.
At the height of the Cold War, German Witt was a darling of the crowds, daring with risqué outfits and dazzling with technical brilliance on skates.
Calgary saw her win a second gold medal four years later as she smouldered with a moving rendition of Bizet’s opera Carmen.
Few skaters reached Witt’s heights in popularity and perhaps never will. Reigning champion Kim Yuna will be favourite in Sochi, when the 2014 Winter Olympics gets underway this week, but acclaim for her ability has probably been more difficult to achieve outside her South Korea homeland.
“I think it’s a general change of time,” says Witt. “These days it’s harder to be somebody special because everyone tries so hard and you only get bits and pieces of news here and there. We do have Kim Yuna. She’s a superstar in Korea, but we hardly know her in Europe if I’m being honest.
“But this is what happens in sport. In tennis we had Steffi Graf and Boris Becker, but for Germany now you have nobody interested anymore, but superstars in other countries like Roger Federer mean all the Swiss people are watching.”
Things were certainly different in the time Witt became a sporting heroine amid a background of socialism.
Born in Staaken, she grew up in the Eastern part of Germany which was under Russian control. Having shown her skating potential at the age of seven, she attended a school for athletically-gifted children.
And, as her talent flourished, so did the support from the State and scrutiny from the Stasi, the nation’s notorious secret police.
For 17 years and with 3,000 pages in 27 boxes of files, her life was monitored and recorded, and such was the assumption that Witt co-operated willingly that she wrote an autobiography in 2004, two years after the public revelations, to defend herself.
“People were coming out of the woodwork and telling lies about my past. I needed to write the book and address it all,” she said.
Just as the love of the public mattered when she performed, so did the perception of her away from the ice. While being spied upon from the age of eight hurt and the declassified Stasi files show they were keen to stop her defecting, Witt – who skated for a unified Germany at the 1994 Winter Olympics after the Berlin Wall had come down in 1989 – says she would not have left anyway.
She said: “I don’t think I would have done that. Never. I would always have been there where my friends and family were.
“I had the chance to defect, when I was 18, 19, and had people asking me and offering me a lot of money, but no money in the world would have been enough to leave my family.
“I was promised I could do big shows and make money with it and have endorsement deals, different opportunities.
“But it was never an option for me because at this time I would not have had a chance to go back to East Germany and see my parents and there was no money in the world that would have made me leave my parents.
“And I was very loyal too to my country, my coaches, my teacher. I would never have left them behind. Whatever came out later, it never scared me growing up, no. I always thought everything would work out in my life and so far it has.
“People talk about what happened in the past, but it was the time we lived in and I coped with it. I never say if, when and what might have been.
“It is what it is and this is what I went through and I’m grateful for my career. I was lucky in a way because my sport and sports in general was supported by our State which gave me the opportunity to be the skater I became. It wasn’t about being rich and famous, it was about being the best at something.
“I had the pressure, tremendous pressure and it was hard to deal with that. Pressure to win for the country, pressure to bring home the medals for the country.
“For some wrong reasons, the sport was used to show that we are the better system, which after all turned out that no we are not because democracy is much bigger than anything else. But I was able to have my dreams fulfilled and have no bitterness when I look back.”
Witt does not like to dwell on past glories that also include four world titles, but admits it may now be time to do so.
“I hardly watch my old videos of performances,” she adds. “Maybe because it’s so sentimental, because it’s over. I’m glad I closed that chapter because I opened up new chapters, but still, it’s something that my heart was in – and it was my passion.
“Sometimes you think you want to have that feeling, to be in front of an audience and performing the way you were. I’ve still got skates at home, but I never use them. I last skated more than a year ago, but I quit officially six years ago after my farewell tour.
“The medals? I have them somewhere packed in a bag. They are not up on the wall or on display. Maybe I should do this now. I am proud, but sometimes I feel you don’t want to look back so much. People see things from the past and don’t move on.
“But I do think I have now come to a point where enough years have passed and where there’s not so much ahead of me. Of course I look back and think what I achieved.
“It gets to me, and the older you get, the more proud you are at everything you have achieved; the friendships you made and knowing that you did something special and touched so many people’s lives.”
Witt is touching lives even now. Be it skaters inspired by her past, or the young people benefitting from the Katarina Witt Foundation. Set up in 2005, it helps children with disabilities.
She said: “I had a great life, but a lot of luck in my life too. With the Foundation, I feel I can give back and help them to have another life. I always relied on being healthy and it is why I became the successful athlete I was. Here I have the chance to help children get better mobility, with a wheelchair or prosthetics.
"Support is crucial and the Doha GOALS conference recognised that in December by backing an initiative to give children around the world access to prosthetics.
“I’m glad we have this partnership now with Doha GOALS and hope we can collect more funding and be able to support more projects around the world,” says Witt. “Sadly, there’s never enough.”
FACTFILE
Born: December 3, 1965, Staaken, East Germany (now part of Berlin, Germany)
Nickname: Kati
Career:
European Champion: (1983-1988)
World Champion: (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988)
Winter Olympics gold medal: (1984, 1988)
Did you know:
When Witt won the gold medal at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary she became the first woman since Sonja Henie in 1936 to successfully defend her title.
Skating for East Germany and then unified Germany at the Winter OIympics
I had stopped in 1988, but wanted to come back in 1994 to compete for a unified Germany. I wanted to share that experience with my family, parents and to share my passion. My goal was to participate in that and I was proud I did.
Sporting heroes
We have had so many great athletes before and now, but I really admire the Paralympians because they have been through a big tragedy in their lives and they never gave up. They made it even better.
