Heike Gabriela Drechsler is a German and previously East German track and field athlete. She is a 2-time Olympic champion, 2-time World Champion, 5-time European Champion, 2-time World Indoor champion, a former world record holder in the long jump and 200-meter sprint. In 2014, she was inducted into the International Track and Field ‘Hall of Fame’ as the first German woman along with Marita Koch.
She is the only woman who has won two Olympic gold medals in the long jump, winning in Barcelona 1992 and Sydney 2000 Games. Drechsler also won an Olympic silver medal in long jump along with two bronze medals in the 100m and 200m at Seoul 1988 Games. She is considered the best long jumper of all time and ranks third on the all-time list with her legal best of 7.48m.
Drechsler, sported the lace less innovation of ‘PUMA Disc,’ the world’s first sports shoe with a system of internal wires that tighten the upper for a perfect fit. The Disc entered the world stage of Athletics at the Olympic Games in Barcelona 1992. Wearing the Disc, Drechsler jumped to victory with a leap of 7.14 meters, her first Olympic gold medal.
Birth and Career
Heike Gabriela Drechsler was born on December 16, 1964 in Gera, Bezirk Gera in East Germany, presently Thuringia in Germany. Her father died when she was very young, but she overcame all setbacks to become one of the most impressive German athletes. As a teenager, she was active in the Free German Youth and in 1984 she was elected to the Volkskammer of East Germany.
At the 1983 World Championships in Helsinki, she won a gold in long jump. She commented: “It was the first World Championships in Helsinki in 1983. Because it was unexpected, I was still very young, only 18 years, and going straight away to such a big world championship, was something special because the pressure at that time in the GDR team was quite high. At that time the Romanian jumper was still better than me. And I beat her at the age of 18 years.”
A very competitive long jumper in her career, Drechsler made a transition into the world of elite sprinting in 1986 at the age of 21. At the 1987 World Championships in Rome, she won a silver in the 100m and a bronze in long jump. At the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, she won a silver in long jump and a bronze in 4x100m relay and finished her career in World Championships with a gold in long jump at 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart.
Her list of championships is long, including five consecutive titles at the European Championships in 1986, 1990, 1994 and 1998, two titles at the 1987 Indoor World Championships, four Indoor European Championships – 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1994, the 1992 Grand-Prix Title, World Cup Champion in 1985, 1992 and 1998, 6-time European Cup Champion and 9-time German Champion.
Drechsler set five outdoor world records, two in the 200m, and three in the long jump, and eight indoor world records, one in the 200 and seven in the long jump. Drechsler studied pedagogy and later made her living as a sports manager. In 1984 she married Andreas Drechsler, whose father Erich was her long-time coach.
World Records
Drechsler set two long jump world records and equalled one in 1985 and 1986. Initially, she broke the world record of 7.43 m (24 ft 4+1⁄2 in) by Anişoara Cuşmir of Romania established in Bucharest, Romania on June 4, 1983 by clearing 7.44 m (24 ft 4+3⁄4 in) at East Berlin, East Germany on September 22, 1985.
Then, she improved her world record to 7.45 m (24 ft 5+1⁄4 in) at Tallinn, Soviet Union on June 21, 1986. Subsequently, she equalled her record of 7.45 m (24 ft 5+1⁄4 in) at Dresden, East Germany on July 3, 1986. The record was also equalled by Jackie Joyner-Kersee of the United States at Indianapolis, United States on August 13, 1987 and Galina Chistyakova of the Soviet Union at Leningrad, Soviet Union on June 11, 1988.
In 1986, Drechsler twice equalled Marita Koch’s 200m sprint (21.71 sec) world record. Drechsler made significant improvements to her sprint double. In one season she went from an 11.75 sec 100m to 10.91 sec. Her 200m time improved from 23.19 sec to 21.71 sec (equalling the world record) in the 1986 season.
Her 21.71 second performance for 200 m at Stuttgart, East Germany on August 29, 1986 was run into a head wind of (−0.8 m/s). By comparison, Marita Koch’s 21.71 sec runs on June 10, 1979 and July 21, 1984 in East Germany had tail winds of +0.7 m/s and +0.3 m/s respectively.
Drechsler’s 200 m performance of 21.71 seconds into a head wind (−0.8 m/s) is one of the fastest ever run by a woman in the history of track and field. This record was improved to 21.56 sec and 21.34 sec by Florence Griffith-Joyner of the United States at Seoul, South Korea on September 29, 1988.
Unforgettable Moments
On the boycott of Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games, she commented: “It was in 1984 that we did not travel to the Los Angeles Olympics. I was in great shape and I jumped the world record that year. All the Eastern bloc countries except Romania boycotted the Olympic Games. This will haunt me forever. At that moment, I said to myself, that I am still young, and I have the possibility to practice your sport longer and get more chances to compete. I think that’s always bad for athletes, it was a dark day because you’ve been working towards it for four years and that would have been my first Olympic Games. It was such a pity, that we couldn’t go.”
On her gold in Sydney 2000: “Then Sydney 2000, was also one of the most memorable moments because that was the end of my career, it was so unexpected and then you stand there one last time on the top of the podium and enjoy all the emotions. I had a lot of injuries. Therefore, it was unexpectedly wonderful and a real joy. That’s why I always talk, those were “Joy Games” for me. I really mapped out the training day by day. I have put a checkmark on every training and evaluated my workload of the day. You have to practice with certain levels of intensity, you don’t know at a certain age how your body will react, but it worked out in the end, it was meant to be.”
Career Progression
The progression of Drechsler in Long jump: 1983 - 7.14 m (23 ft 5 in) in Bratislava / (Juniors); 1985 - 7.44 m (24 ft 5 in) in East Berlin; 1986 - 7.45 m (24 ft 5+1⁄4 in) in Tallinn; 1988 - 7.48 m (24 ft 6+1⁄2 in) in Neubrandenburg; 1992 - 7.63 m (25 ft 1⁄2 in) in Sestriere.
The progression in 200 metres: 1986 - 21.71 sec in Jena; 1986 - 21.71 sec in Stuttgart. In Heptathlon: 1981 - 5891 Points (Junior); 1994 - 6741 Points in Talence. She has never failed a drug test during her career. Her Personal Bests: 100m - 10.91 (1986/88); 200m - 21.71 (1986); LJ - 7.48 (1988/92); Hep - 6741 (1994).
Drechsler 181 cm and 68 kg jumped 7.63 m, her farthest in Sestriere, Italy in 1992, with a tailwind of 2.1 meters per second, just 0.1 m/s over the allowable level of 2.0 m/s to be considered a world record; it was also performed at an altitude of greater than 1000 meters above sea level, which is the level beyond which marks are designated to have been achieved “at altitude.” The jump is 11 cm longer than the current world record.
She elaborated: “Sestriere is known for fast cars. They’ve placed a Ferrari in the middle of the stadium, which you could win, for the world record. I was in the shape of my life in 1992, setting a new German record, with the longest jump. Initially, the jump was measured at 0.01 m/s, then rounded up to 0.1 m/s. An interesting fact, 0.01 m/s has never been measured before. No woman has won the Ferrari in Italy before and with 0.01 m/s you can’t even blow out a candle, so it was minimal wind-assisted and it was a pity. I was like sitting on a cloud, you can really feel it, the feeling of it was maybe a bit like Bob Beamon’s jump.”
During her career Drechsler earned numerous awards: 1986 East German Sportswoman of the Year; ; recipient of a Star of People’s Friendship in gold (second class) award for her sporting success in 1986; 1998 and 2000 German Sportswoman of the Year; Female Long Jumper of the Century by the magazine Track & Field News; Rudolf-Harbig-Gedachtnispreis in 1999; the Distinguished Career Award by the IAAF in 2000; German TV award BAMBI in 1998 and 2000.
Much of her free time is now spent with charitable concerns, including the Deutsche Kinderkrebshilfe (for children’s cancer), Hansel and Gretel (against children’s abuse), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) (she posed erotically for them in 2002) and Myelin Project Deutschland (multiple sclerosis).
Passion and Determination
Speaking on her commitment: “I think, the fighting spirit and determination, that you stay the course, sometimes even during difficult times, when you recover from an injury, you have to rebuild again, that you also have confidence in yourself, passion for the sport, the whole combination. If I started something, I would finish it. And that’s how I’ve always planned it, so when I have a goal, I really work on it consistently. Not blindly, but looking beyond the horizon as part of a team. I think that’s also important, that you don’t over-plan things. That you stay curious, try things out, so the passion, all the fighting, and discipline, not wanting to give up. Passion, fighting spirit, discipline, and not wanting to give up.”
On preparing for a long jump: “These are routines and processes that have already been tried 1000 times. You enter the stadium, the first thing you do is to measure your run-up, it has to be prepared. Then you check your schedule, when is my turn, when do I have to warm up in time. You’re usually already warmed up in a certain way, but the other question is when do I need to warm up so that I can have 100% of this energy at the run-up.
I always try to calm myself down by breathing. And when I have time and everything is prepared, I try to find a quiet corner where no one will disturb me. You see and check, “Do I have a headwind?”, “Do I have a tailwind?”, “Do I still have to adjust my run-up at that moment?” But other than that, it’s just tunnel vision. You also don’t hear anything from the outside, how full the stadium is or how people react.”
Role Models
On Role Models: “I was at a sports school; we always had our heroes pretty close to us. When I came to the sports school, it was Rolf Beilschmidt, a high jumper, we all thought he was kind of cool, may be because he was handsome. Later on, it was Carl Lewis from the technical side, how he long jumped, how he sprinted, how he could combine sprinting and jumping. He was incredibly accurate in his run-up, I spent many hours watching his jumps, it still fascinates me to this day.
I saw that long jump world record in 1991 when Lewis competing against Mike Powell in Tokyo. That was gigantic, they flew over the pit and the technique was like, “I want to jump like that, to hit the board like them.”
To the younger generation
Let me share excerpts of Drechsler’s inspirational words for the benefit of young athletes: “Just live your dreams. My dream was sports, going your own way, and not letting anything get in the way of that. I think that’s important when you’re young, that you go out a lot, and experience a lot together with other people.
Travel was a bit limited for me but we have travelled a lot for the competitions, but that has already given me an incredible amount, to get to know other countries and that in connection with sports.
Sport has also been a certain family for me, it still is today, and I think that’s very important, that you love what you do. And that you work on it and you’re focused, you work on your strengths and you work on your weaknesses. You get to know yourself and therefore have the courage to tackle things and change them for yourself.”
Challengers as a mother: “I became a mother on November 1, 1989 and that were exciting times. On November 9, the Berlin Wall came down and it was a touching time for me. In 1988, the Olympic Games were held in Seoul and I needed a break to recover. I would have stopped because, I was a mother and I also wanted to be there for my son.
And that’s why it was a new beginning with the freedom to travel that came, new opportunities and then I thought about it very carefully. I made the decision to start again, and I know it was very, very difficult. After 4 weeks I thought I’d give up on the whole thing. But then I got used to training more and more again and, I realized that I enjoyed the sport and of course the training, the daily challenges I had so much fun.”
She continued: “My performance improved and so in 1990, I was back and the conditions were now, that I could take my son with me to training camps and competitions. And under these new conditions, it was fascinating to me, a chance to find my own way back into the sport and I think both decades before the ‘fall of the wall’ and after the most important thing was the love for sports, which has always been that way and I loved the training, the discipline, the determination to compete, to know what you want, and to put it into action. The team, was always supportive, believed in me, developed trust in me, and we grew together as a team.”
(The author is an Associate Professor, International Scholar, winner of Presidential Awards and multiple National Accolades for Academic pursuits. He possesses a PhD, MPhil and double MSc. His email is [email protected])