Christa Luding-Rothenburger biography
Christa Luding-Rothenburger, née Rothenburger, also called Christa Rothenburger-Luding, (born December 4, 1959, Weisswasser, East Germany [now Germany]), East German pace skater and bicycle owner who earned the excellence of being the primary and solely individual to win Summer and Winter Olympic medals in the identical yr (1988). At the Winter Games in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, she gained the gold medal within the 1,000-metre speed-skating occasion; she then earned the silver medal within the 1,000-metre dash biking occasion on the Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea. Luding-Rothenburger’s feat can by no means be equaled due to the two-year shift within the Winter Games schedule that occurred in 1994.
Christa Rothenburger first entered worldwide competitors strictly as a pace skater. But in 1980 her coach, Ernst Luding (whom she would later marry), urged her to take up biking within the low season. He believed that biking and skating shared comparable necessities of pace and power. The coaching helped Rothenburger to win the gold medal within the 500-metre speed-skating occasion on the 1984 Olympic Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina). The East German Sports Federation initially refused her petition to additionally compete in biking however later relented. She gained the 1985 world dash championship in pace skating and the 1986 world championship in dash biking. In addition to her historic Olympic achievements in 1988, that yr Luding-Rothenburger gained her second world dash speed-skating championship. She competed on the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France, incomes a bronze medal within the 500-metre speed-skating occasion.