Brigitte Ahrenholz was a member of the East German gold-medal winning eights at the 1976 Montréal Summer Games, when women’s rowing was on the Olympic agenda for the first time. She burst onto the scene in 1971 as a 19-year-old, when she won a silver medal at the European Championships with the East German coxed eights. Two years later, she won the European title with the coxed quadruple sculls. Ahrenholz added a World Championship gold with the coxed eights at Luzern in 1974.
Domestically, she won four East Geman national titles. After her active rowing career, she became a surgeon at Werder, near Potsdam. In March 2018, she went out for a regular meeting with other medical practitioners, and was not seen alive again. A month later, her body was found in the Zernsee, near Werder. Police said that there were no suspicious circumstances.
East Germany