Biography
She won the long jump gold medal in the 1972 Munich Olympics with a leap of 6.78m, one centimetre ahead of Diana Yorgova of Bulgaria. Two days later in a thrilling pentathlon, she finished second to Mary Peters of Britain.
After the three events on the first day Rosendahl was in the fifth place, 301 points behind Peters. On the second day, she jumped 6.83 m in the longjump (one cm short of the record) and ran the 200m in 22.96 seconds. She finished with 4791 points, 16 points better than Burglinde Pollak's world record. She held the world record for 1.12 seconds before Peters bettered it by 10 points on finishing her 200m race in 24.08 seconds. To further prove her versatility, she helped the West German 4 x 100 m team with Christiane Krause, Ingrid Mickler-Becker and Annegret Richter to the gold medal and a world record.
Her son Danny Ecker is a world class pole vaulter.
Read more about this topic: Heide Rosendahl
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“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)