Viola Poley was a member of the East German gold medal winning coxed quadruple sculls at the 1976 Montréal Summer Games, when women’s rowing was on the Olympic agenda for the first time. In 1977, she won her only East German national title and, a few weeks later, the World Championships. Poley married non-Olympian rower Günter Kowalschek and studied engineering economics in the construction industry. She first worked with the municipality of Berlin-Köpenick, and after re-unification, for a car insurance company.
East Germany