Udo BEYER

Many athletes seize their moment of glory when another more credentialed athlete performs well below par. As a twenty-year old, Udo Beyer won the Shot Put at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games when five much more mature athletes threw well below their seasonal bests. In fact, Beyer nearly didn't make it to the Olympics at all, having only been included in the East German team at the last minute. Udo's best throw (and personal best) for the 1976 season prior to the Olympics was 21.12m, whereas five other athletes had seasonal bests over 21.50m, including Alexsandr Baryshnikov (Soviet Union), who had set a new world record of 22.00m only two weeks before the Olympics. Indeed, Baryshnikov confirmed his status as gold medal favourite at Montreal when he threw 21.32m to set a new Olympic record in the qualifying round on 23 July.

However, in the final the next day, none of the top throwers could get anywhere near their previous bests except the young Beyer, who threw 21.05m (see photo above) to narrowly win the gold medal. This signalled the start of a decade of dominance in the event by Beyer. In 1978, he broke the world record for the first time, throwing 22.15m at Gothenburg on 6 July. He produced the top 11 throws in the world that year, and easily won the European title at Prague on 1 September with a throw of 21.08m. In 1980, he produced the longest five throws of the year, and it seemed a mere formality that he would successfully defend his Olympic title at Moscow. However, Udo was somewhat below par on the day of the final, and finished a surprising third. It was later revealed that he had pulled a back muscle. (Ron Casey)

After his disappointing bronze medal at the 1980 Olympic Games, Udo Beyer quickly re-established his supremacy amongst the world's shot putters. On 9 September 1982, he easily defended his European title (see photo above), winning the gold medal with a throw of 21.50m. In 1983, Udo beat his own world record, with an improvement to 22.22m in an international match at Los Angeles on 25 June. However, in a major upset at the Helsinki World Championships in August, Beyer finished a surprising sixth, although it was obvious he was nursing an injury to his right hamstring. Beyer was back on top the next year, with the longest three throws of 1984, but he was denied the opportunity of further Olympic glory when the eastern bloc countries boycotted the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Udo's dominance of the event started to wane in 1985 with the emergence of young compatriot Ulf Timmermann, who broke Beyer's world record in September.

Beyer bounced back to regain the world record the following year, throwing 22.64m at Berlin on 20 August 1986. However, at the European Championships at Stuttgart only 8 days later, his woes at major championships continued, and he finished a disappointing third. Udo continued to compete in major championships for many years after that, but no longer as the favourite. He finished sixth at the 1987 World Championships in Rome, and then fourth, well behind the three medallists at his third Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988. Beyer retired after Seoul, but returned in 1990 to compete in his fifth European Championships in Split where he finished fifth. His long career came to an anticlimactic end at his fourth Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992, where he failed to qualify for the final. (Ron Casey)