Sport Katarina Witt
“She never got over the humiliation”
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Jutta Müller (l.) shaped Katarina Witt into a global star
Quelle: picture alliance/SvenSimon/SVEN SIMON
Jutta Müller shaped figure skaters into world stars. Especially Katarina Witt. A few weeks after Müller’s death, the 1984 and 1988 Olympic champion denounced the treatment of her long-time mentor.
On November 2nd, Jutta Müller died in a nursing home near Berlin. Müller, who would have turned 95 on December 13th, was best known as a coach of successful figure skaters. Her protégés won a total of three Olympic gold medals, ten world, 18 European and 42 GDR championship titles.
The most famous athlete that Müller trained was Katarina Witt. In “Zeit-Magazin”, the 58-year-old, who became a two-time Olympic champion (1984 and 1988) and a four-time world champion (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988), spoke about competitive sports in the former GDR and the hard training under Müller . “Of course our competitive sports system was brutal because you could be sorted out so quickly,” says Witt in the interview: “This form of selection was merciless, it was always just about competitive sports from the start.”
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Her trainer’s toughness is also a result of Müller’s own discipline: “I never once saw her letting herself go. But because I had a clear goal myself, I accepted their strictness quite naturally.”
“Too much went wrong at the time of change”
Although Müller was the most successful figure skating coach in the world in the 1970s and 1980s, she lost her job with reunification in 1990.
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Witt remembers: “She never got over the humiliation that was inflicted on her by the ice skating union at the time. It seemed to me as if there was a mentality of settling scores among West German sports officials. Before reunification, GDR athletes were mostly the ones who won. Now they could use their position to finally act like ‘victors.'” Witt continues: “Far too much went wrong at the time of reunification, with far too many people whose life’s achievements were trampled on.”
Witt herself ended her great career after winning the 1988 World Cup and began a professional career with “Holiday on Ice”. From 1990 to 2003 she worked in various ice revues around the world. In 1994, Witt made a sensational comeback at the Olympics under Müller, finishing seventh.
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