Marita Koch
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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born |
18 February 1957 Wismar, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, East Germany |
| Height | 171 cm (5 ft 7 in) |
| Weight | 62 kg (137 lb) |
| Sport | |
| Sport | Track and field |
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Medal record
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| Updated on 30 June 2015. | |
Marita Koch (born 18 February 1957), married name Marita Koch Meier, is a German former sprint track and field athlete. During her career she collected sixteen world records in outdoor sprints as well as fourteen world records in indoor events. Her record of 47.60 in the 400 metres, set on 6 October 1985, still stands. Only once since then (Marie-José Pérec at the 1996 Olympics) has another athlete come within a second of her time. Perec was also coached later on in her sprinting career by Koch's coach, Wolfgang Meier.
Born in Wismar, East Germany, Marita Koch displayed exceptional speed even as a young child and was defeating boys much older than herself in sprint races whilst at school. By the time she had turned 15 years old, she was training under Wolfgang Meier. Meier worked as a Naval Engineer, but also coached athletics part-time. Koch and Meier moved to where Koch began to study medicine. However, she decided to stop her studies and focus on running instead. Koch was coached by Meier for her entire career, and they later married. She retained her maiden name and is now known as Marita Koch-Meier. She and her husband have a daughter named Ulrike.
Koch has held world records over several distances from 50 m to 400 m. Some of her best performances are as follows:
Koch ran a 400 m quarterfinal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal (51.87 seconds), but withdrew due to injury. She set her first world record in 1977 in Milan, when she ran a 400 m indoors in 51.8 seconds. The following year, she set her first outdoor record at 400 m in 49.19 seconds. She topped this with another two world records within a month. In 1979 Koch became the first woman to run a 200 m in under 22 seconds. Her time of 21.71 seconds (wind +0.7 m/s) set at Karl Marx Stadt stood as the world record for nine years. She tied her own 200 m world record in 1984 (21.71 seconds +0.3 m/s Potsdam). However, her 200 m world record was equaled twice in 1986 by Heike Drechsler. One of Drechsler's 21.71 second 200 m performances was achieved into a headwind whereas both of Koch's performances of 21.71 had a tailwind.
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