Fredy Schmidtke

Track cyclist Fredy Schmidtke was born in Köln-Worringen and burst onto the scene in 1977, winning the West German Youth Championships, a title he retained the following year. In 1979, Schmidtke won five national titles and also captured the youth world title in the 1 km time trial in Buenos Aires. In 1981 he won two silver medals at the Senior Amateur World Championships in the 1 km time trial and tandem, with non-Olympian and long-time partner Dieter Giebken. The following year Schmidtke won the time trial at the World Championships, and again won the silver with Giebken. In 1983, the tandem duo added a bronze medal to their collection.

Domestically, Schmidtke won the West German national time trial title 1980-84, was sprint champion 1980-82 and 1984 and, with Giebken, won the tandem title in 1980-83. Schmidtke’s greatest moment came in 1984 when he captured the time trial gold medal at the Los Angeles Summer Olympics. In the sprint event he finished eighth.

Schmidtke was a trained pipe fitter, but after his Olympic triumph, opened a sports shop in Cologne. As he was not a trained businessman, his business failed and he went bankrupt. He then worked in his trained job for a couple of years to pay back his debts. In 2017, he died from a heart attack.