Lothar Pongratz

Lothar Pongratz was a member of the West German four-man bob together with Alois Schnorbus, Jürgen Hofmann and Martin Meinberg at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games, where they finished 10th. He was a bobsleigh driver in addition to his career as a discus thrower. In 1970, he was West German youth discus champion, and in 2007 he won the gold medal in the senior (55 and over) class. He also won two West German national titles with the four-man bob in the 1970s.

Pongratz was a very active senior sportsman and a sports administrator at LC Paderborn, where he was president from 1994-2007. By profession, he was a graduate business engineer with Nixdorf Computers and became a project manager for trade fair organizations. In 2013 he collapsed during a short training session and died of heart failure a few hours later.