Katarina Witt Biography

Katarina Witt was the dominant female figure skater of the 1980s, winning gold medals for East Germany in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.

Kataina Witt won her medals in singles figure skating, first at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics and the second at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. She also won the world championship four times (in 1984, 1985, 1987 and 1988) as well as a remarkable string of six consecutive European championships (from 1983–1988).

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, East Germany and West Germany were reunited, and Katarina Witt’s sex appeal and talent made her a natural for capitalist success. She turned pro and toured the world in skating shows, and in the 1990s she made the full transition from skating star to international heartthrob, taking small parts in movies like Jerry Maguire (1996) and Ronin (1998, with Robert DeNiro). She also made a splash by posing nude for the December 1998 edition of Playboy magazine. In 2006 she launched a new show on German television, Stars auf Eis (Stars on Ice).