Maxi Herber

Through the 2006 Winter Olympics, Maxi Herber is still the youngest female Winter Olympic champion at 15 years, 127 days. She began skating pairs in 1934 with Ernst Baier, winning the German Championships that year. Together they eventually won five German titles (1934-36, 1938-39), five European Championships (1935-39), four World Championships (1936-39) and the Olympic gold medal in 1936.

Skating historians note that they raised pairs skating in terms of technical difficulty and artistic flow, revolutionizing pair skating by performing the first side by side jumps in competition. In 1941 Baier and Herber were married, but they divorced in 1964. After World War II they skated in ice revues and built up an own revue which they later sold to “Holiday on Ice.”

As a result of the divorce, she had to depend on social services to survive, and suffered from Parkinson’s disease in her later years. In 2000 she moved to the Lenzheim retirement home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and soon afterwards had an exhibition of her water colour paintings there. She died at age 86 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen; at that time having been Germany’s oldest living female Olympic champion.