Andreas Wecker

In 1989, German gymnast Andreas Wecker was elected the last Sportsman of the Year in East Germany before re-unification. He participated in four consecutive Olympic Games, representing East Germany in 1988 at Seoul, and re-unified Germany at Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996), and Sydney (2000). In 1988, he won the team silver medal and finished eighth on the horizontal bar. In the individual all-around he placed 30th.

In 1992, Wecker was an unfortunate fourth in both the team and individual all-around events. He also reached all apparatus finals except the horse vault. Wecker won silver on the horizontal bar and two bronze medals, on the rings and the pommelled horse. On both the floor exercise and the parallel bars he came seventh. In 1996, Wecker finished seventh with the team and 13th in the individual all-around. On the horizontal bar he crowned his career with the gold medal. In 2000, the team finished a disappointing tenth and Wecker placed 30th in the individual all-around and did not reach an apparatus final.

Wecker was also World Champion in 1995 and European Champion in 1989 and 1992, all on the horizontal bar. He added 14 more World Championship medals. Domestically, he won more than 40 national medals in both the former GDR and re-unified Germany.

Wecker founded his own company organizing gymnastics events in 2000, but went bankrupt after a divorce battle with his first wife. In 2006, he fell ill with Crohn’s disease but fully recovered. Since 2008, Wecker headed a company in Bend, Oregon that produced plant germ oils. In 2020, he admitted that he had received oral turinabol in the former GDR but did not take them and only sold them.