Rower Birte Siech won the gold medal with the East German coxed fours at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Four years later at Barcelona, she added a bronze medal with the re-unified German coxless fours. In 1984, she won the coxless pairs at the Youth World Championships, and in 1987 won a coxed fours silver medal at the Worlds. Siech then moved to the eights, winning the national championship in 1989, and then partnered Ina Justh at the 1990 Worlds she won coxless pairs bronze medal.
In 1991 Siech won the German nationals with the eights and in 1994 and 1995 with Gabriele Mehl in the coxless pairs but, she did not qualify for the 1996 Atlanta Games. She was awarded the Silver Bay Leaf, Germany’s highest sports award. By profession, she became a nursery school teacher in Dortmund. Siech later regularly participated in the Rathenow Dragon Boat Races.
East Germany 
Germany