Ackermann, first over two meters
Straddle queen has to leave record premium in the west
4/4/2022 6:56 am
Rosemarie Ackermann jumped seven world records in her high jump career and became Olympic champion in 1976. But one jump in particular remains in memory: In 1977 she is the first woman to exceed two meters. She also remembers this special moment on her 70th birthday.
The leap into sporting immortality began with a little cheating. “I was actually only 1 meter 73.5 tall, but I said 1.75 meters at the time because that was the minimum height for a high jump career in the GDR,” Rosemarie Ackermann told SID. Only in this way could the “little one” become a big one, which made history on August 26, 1977 in the Olympic Stadium in West Berlin as the first two-meter high jumper.
If her height had been accurately measured, Ackermann would probably never have become a high jumper.
(Photo: imago/WEREK)
“When I landed on the mat, I clapped my hands in front of my face because I couldn’t hold back the tears. The feeling was overwhelming,” said Ackermann, who turns 70 today, Monday. She still needs “a few minutes to collect myself” when she enters the stadium: “Because then the film of the jump immediately runs in front of my inner eye.”
It was exactly 8:14 p.m. when the then 25-year-old from Lusatia hit the magic mark on her belly in the straddle style, which she calls Wälzer – at the ISTAF, of all places, the former class enemy. “It was like I was intoxicated. I set my world record at 1.97 meters and then said to myself, now you have to try the two meters,” said Ackermann. The dream height succeeded on the first attempt, at 2.02 meters the tension was gone.
She was not allowed to accept the organizer’s bonus
Only in the afternoon did the woman from Cottbus travel from the training camp in Kienbaum to the west of the divided city with the three-person East German athletes group. It went back again that night. The great moment brought her 1,500 GDR marks in record bonuses and the titles GDR Sportswoman of the Year and World Sportswoman 1977. She was not allowed to accept the 10,000 D-Mark paid by the organizer.
“I also tried the flop with which Ulrike Meyfarth had become Olympic champion four years before me. I managed 1.82 meters. But a change would have been too difficult,” said Ackermann, who also finds one thing a bit of a shame: “People only think about this achievement. I jumped a total of seven world records. And my Olympic victory in 1976 was definitely the more valuable achievement.” And: “I can say that I have never knowingly doped.”
It was “as quiet as a mouse” in the stadium when she started, said Ackermann, née Witschas: “You could have heard a pin drop. Then I jumped off and I noticed over the bar that she was lying down.” The world record bonus, a “suitcase full of money,” stayed in the West. “I was only allowed to keep a brooch that was given at the award ceremony,” said Ackermann, the last queen of the straddle.