West German rower Wolfgang Maennig was a member of the coxed fours crew at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics that placed sixth and last in the final. Four years later at Seoul he won the gold medal with the coxed eights. Therefore, the crew and all their members were awarded the Silver Bay Leaf, Germany’s highest sports award. He could not participate in the 1980 Moscow Olympics due to the US-led boycott of the Western countries. In 1981, 1983-84, and 1988, however, he won national titles with the coxed fours, and with the coxed eights in 1987-88.
Maennig later became professor of economics at the European University of Applied Sciences in Berlin and then at the University of Hamburg, where he also became the dean of this faculty from 2003-05. In addition, he held various visiting professorships abroad. He wrote numerous publications on the theory and politics of foreign trade. He also wrote financial reports for the unsuccessful Olympic applications in Berlin 2000 and Leipzig 2012, as well as the Winter Games in Munich 2018 and the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in 2009. He was also active as a sports official. Between 1989-92 he was a founding member of the German Anti-Doping Agency, and between 1995-2001 was president of the German Rowing Association. In 1999 he received the Olympic silver medal.
West Germany