Sylke Otto biography
Sylke Otto, (born July 7, 1969, Karl-Marx-Stadt, E.Ger. [now Chemnitz, Ger.]), German luger who received gold medals on the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics.
Otto started lugeing at age 10 when she was inspired to strive the game by workforce trainers visiting her college. She began competing in 1983, joined the German nationwide luge workforce in 1991, and received her first general World Cup title in 1994–95. Otto initially educated (1989–93) as a pharmacology technical assistant, however in 1996 she joined a particular sports activities group within the German armed forces, which allowed her to give attention to lugeing.
During her first Olympic expertise, on the Albertville (France) Winter Games in 1992, Otto slid to a disappointing thirteenth place. She did not make the workforce for the 1994 and 1998 Games. At the 2002 Salt Lake City (Utah) Games, nevertheless, she defeated her German teammate and rival Silke Kraushaar, the 1998 Olympic champion, to win gold.
After securing her fourth particular person world championship in 2005, Otto had surgical procedure for a herniated disk in her again. She shortly recovered, nevertheless, and slid to a silver medal (behind Kraushaar) within the opening race of the 2005–06 World Cup tour and received the second race on the brand new Olympic monitor in Italy. After three poor showings, notably a sixth-place end in Lake Placid, N.Y., Otto returned to type for the remaining World Cup races. She earned the gold medal in two of the final three occasions, together with the season-ending race in Oberhof, Ger., simply two weeks earlier than the Olympics. Her second-place end behind Kraushaar within the general World Cup factors competitors set the stage for Turin, the place Otto posted the quickest velocity in three of the 4 runs and captured her second consecutive Olympic gold medal. Her victory in Turin made her solely the second feminine luger for the reason that sport was added to the Olympic program in 1964 to have captured a gold medal in consecutive Games (East Germany’s Steffi Walter-Martin received in Sarajevo, Yugos., in 1984 and Calgary, Alta., Can., in 1988). Otto retired from the game in 2007, having collected three European championship titles, 4 general World Cup factors titles, and 6 world championship victories (4 particular person and two workforce).