Karin Balzer
Karin Balzer in 1963
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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born |
5 June 1938 (age 78) Magdeburg, Germany |
| Height | 1.71 m (5 ft 7 in) |
| Weight | 64 kg (141 lb) |
| Sport | |
| Sport | Athletics |
| Event(s) | 80, 100 m hurdles |
| Club | SC DHfK SC Leipzig |
| Achievements and titles | |
| Personal best(s) | 80 mH – 10.61 (1968) 100 mH – 12.6 (1971) |
Karin Balzer (née Richert on 5 June 1938) is a retired East German hurdler who competed in the 80 m hurdlers event at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Olympics, and in the 100 m hurdles in 1972. She won a gold medal in 1964 and a bronze in 1972, while finishing fifth in 1968. During her career she set 37 world's best performances.
She was born Karin Richert in Magdeburg, and competed in several track and field events in her teens. She showed her best results in the 80 m hurdles and qualified for the 1960 Summer Olympics. The United Team of Germany then included athletes of both East and West Germany. She finished fourth in her Olympic seminfinal and narrowly missed the final.
The following year, she married her coach, former pole vaulter, Karl-Heinz Balzer. Some years earlier, they had briefly fled the DDR, but had returned weeks later. Now competing as Karin Balzer, she won her first international medal, silver at the 1962 European Championships. In 1964, she tied the world record in the hurdles during a pentathlon competition. Despite showing good reasult she never competed in pentathlon at major meets.
At the Tokyo Olympics that same year, she placed for the final of the 80 m hurdles. In a close finish, the first three runners all timed 10.5 seconds, equal to the world record (although the record was not ratified due to a wind). Electronic timing showed Balzer had beaten the two other medallists by one and two hundredths of a second, respectively.
Two years later, Balzer won a second title at the European Championships, and she placed fifth in the 1968 Olympic final; she was the Olympic flag bearer for East Germany at those Games. That was the last major event in which the high hurdles were run over 80 m; from 1969 on, the event became the 100 m. Balzer set the inaugural world record in that event, in June 1969, but would lower it two more times that year. She also successfully defended her European title in Athens, which she repeated in Helsinki in 1971. That year she was voted East German Sportswoman of the Year.
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