Olympic javelin throw champion Ruth Fuchs has died at the age of 76. This was confirmed by Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left) and the German Athletics Association, citing Fuchs' immediate private environment, to the German Press Agency on Wednesday. Accordingly, the former world-class athlete died early Wednesday morning in the University Hospital Jena.
The in Egeln near Magdeburg born Fuchs was the first woman who had thrown a javelin over 60 meters. At the end of her career in competitive sports, which lasted between 1967 and 1980, the world's best female javelin thrower failed to reach the 70-meter mark by four centimeters with her sixth and last world record. "Even then, it had briefly annoyed me that four centimeters were missing the 70 meters. Overall, it has been a wonderful time. I am proud of my achievements," Fuchs once said.
In 1967, she won her first of a total of eleven GDR championship titles. In addition to Olympic victories in Munich in 1972 and four years later in Montreal, the athlete from SC Motor Jena also won twice at European championships, several times at the European Cup and at the World Cup, which was held for the first time in 1977. In view of her successes, Fuchs, who was defeated only three times, was also called the "woman with the iron arm."
