Gabriele Seyfert East German figure skater Date of Birth: 23.11.1948 Country: Germany

Biography of Gabriele Seyfert

Gabriele Seyfert is an East German figure skater who competed in the ladies' singles category. She was coached by her mother, Jutta Müller. Seyfert was one of the first sports stars from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to gain worldwide recognition. In 1968, she became the first woman to cleanly execute a triple Rittberger. Throughout her career, Seyfert was the main competitor of American figure skater Peggy Fleming but never managed to defeat her. In 1968, Gabriele won the silver medal at the Olympics in Grenoble. Additionally, she became a two-time world champion (1969 and 1970), a three-time European champion (1967, 1969, and 1970), and a ten-time GDR champion (from 1961 to 1970 consecutively).

In 1970, Seyfert retired from her amateur career. She received an offer to skate in the show "Holiday on Ice," but the GDR authorities did not give her permission to take up this job. In 1972, she gave birth to her daughter, Sheila. After retiring from sports, Gabriele Seyfert worked as a figure skating coach. She collaborated with the talented skater Anett Pötzsch, but due to the existing coaching hierarchy at the time, Pötzsch was transferred to Jutta Müller's group. Feeling hurt by this situation, Gabriele Seyfert left the sport and enrolled in university to study foreign languages. She eventually became a professional translator.

From 1985 to 1991, she hosted an ice show at the Friedrichstadtpalast in East Berlin, where she occasionally performed on skates. After this project was closed, she began working for a company that specialized in house cleaning, maintenance, and security. Gabriele Seyfert currently resides in Berlin.