News02 Jul 2008


"Only every ten years is such a talent born" - Germany's Discus legend Lars Riedel retires

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Lars Riedel of Germany qualifies for the final of the Discus Throw (© Getty Images)

Lars Riedel, one of the greatest German athletes ever and one of the greatest discus throwers of all time, announced his retirement in Berlin today (2).

There will be an official farewell ceremony by the German Federation, the Deutscher Leichtathletik-Verband (DLV) for the Olympic, European and five-time World Champion at next weekend’s national championships in Nuremberg.

“I had hoped to be able to end my career in Beijing at the Olympic Games but this is not possible because of back pains,” Riedel said a few days after celebrating his 41st birthday.

Riedel has for many years suffered from back problems. But in the more recent past his back completely stopped him from competing. He could not throw at all in 2007 and had no competition this year as well. The last time Riedel did compete was on 27th August 2006 in Bad Köstritz, where he finished second with 61.34m.


Riedel had been in promising early form in 2006, when he threw 69.38m in Wiesbaden in mid May. But when it came to the European Championships in Gothenburg, which now have turned out to have been his last major competition, he had again problems and had to be content with eighth place (64.11).

Thoughts turned to the west

Born in Zwickau Lars Riedel grew up in the sports system of the GDR. His first international championship appearance was in the World Junior Championships in 1986, where he finished fourth.

Shortly before the official reunification of Germany he qualified for the European Championships of 1990 but did not make the final in Split.

When East Germany’s sports system crashed after reunification in October 1990 a number of athletes had huge problems to adapt to the new situation. But it turned out to be fortunate for Riedel who had said that he did not feel comfortable in the system of the GDR, because for example he wanted to determine himself where he would compete. When he met West German coach Karlheinz Steinmetz his career took the decisive turn.

“Only every ten years such a talent is born. Lars is born for the Discus Throw,” Steinmetz once said.

Riedel measures 1.99 m, weighs 115 kilos and his arm range is 2.10 metres.

He started competing for Steinmetz’s club USC Mainz in 1991 (later swaped back to LAC Chemnitz) and surprisingly took the gold in the Tokyo World Championships in 1991 at the age of 24. That was the beginning of a tremendous win streak at these championships. 

Riedel became World champion again in Stuttgart 1993, Gothenburg 1995 and Athens 1997. He then was third in Seville but bounced back winning the title in Edmonton in 2001. In between Riedel, who had been compared to America’s four-time Olympic champion Al Oerter, became European Champion in 1998. He was at the Olympics four times: Missing the final in 1992, winning the gold in 1996, taking silver in 2000 and then finishing seventh in 2004.

70m comes first for Riedel in 1996

It was not before Zurich in 1996 that Riedel was able to throw beyond the 70m mark for the first time (71.06). Less than a year later in spring 1997 he achieved his best mark ever with 71.50 m in Wiesbaden.

There were years when the dominance of the world’s best Discus Thrower of the 1990ies was awsome. In 1995 – another World Championship year – Lars Riedel had the 14 furthest throws of the year worldwide (from 69.08 to 66.80 m).

Riedel had hoped to win a sixth World Championship gold medal, a feat which was only achieved by one athlete so far in one discipline: Sergey Bubka. But in 2003 Lars Riedel took fourth place and two years later he finished ninth in Helsinki, which was his eighth appearance at these championships since 1991.

Back problems

Originally, ‘The Master of the Circles’as he his called in Germany had planned to end his career at the Olympic Games in Athens. But after he got injured during the final and gave up the competition he decided that this would not be the way of ending his career.

After having sorted out personal problems (divorce from his wife) he moved to Rottach-Egern in the south of Bavaria where he still lives with his girlfriend. His new life seemed to give him new energy, but the back problem stopped him again and again.

“I could no longer train with intensity,” said Riedel, who was Germany’s most successful male athlete of the 1990ies.

Interviewed by German press agency DPA a couple of weeks ago there was still some hope, but in the end Riedel did not make it to what would have been his fifth Olympics. When he announced his retirement in Berlin he introduced his biography on Wednesday. The title is: ‘My World is a Disc’

Jörg Wenig for the IAAF

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