After her surprise victory in the 100m hurdles at the 1976 Montreal
Olympics, where she reduced her personal best from 12.99sec to 12.77sec,
Johanna Klier maintained an impressive competitive consistency amongst
the world's top performers in the event, including a second place finish
at the 1977 World Cup, and a gold medal at the 1978 European
Championships in a new personal best time of 12.62sec. Her next major
challenge came at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, where she was the
defending champion. Klier was in arguably the best form of her career
during 1980, but she had to contend with a lot of emerging talent,
including her young countrywoman Kerstin Claus.
At the East German
national championships in Cottbus on 17 July, Klier set a career best
time of 12.56sec in the preliminary rounds when narrowly defeating Claus
(12.60sec). In the final held later the same day, their times were
even faster, with Klier clocking 12.51sec to her younger opponent's
12.56sec, but the marks were not valid due to excessive wind assistance.
The 100m hurdles at the Moscow Olympics was one of the events least
affected by the USA led boycott, and all the world's top athletes were
in attendance.
The two fastest times in the semi-finals came in the
second heat, which world record holder Grazyna Rabsztyn (Poland) won in
12.64sec from Klier in 12.77sec. The other semi-final was won by the
Soviet Unionís Vera Komisova. In the final on 28 July, Rabsztyn got a
poor start in lane 1, while Klier in lane 3 got the best start of the
major contenders. Komisova, in lane 5, took the lead just after the
halfway mark (see photo above), and was never headed, while Klier
hung on to win the silver medal in 12.63sec. Klier retired from
international athletics shortly afterwards. (Ron Casey). |
She married the hurdler Martin Klier on 11 September 1976 Schaller-Klier was educated as a
sports teacher and worked at the Pedagogical University of Erfurt / Mulhousen. After German
reunification she moved to Landessportbund, Thuringia and worked in the youth department.
|
| 100m. Hürden Endrunde |
|
|
|
|
Olympische Spiele 1980
.
|
| 1. Vera KOMISOVA |
|
SOV |
|
12.56 OR |
| 2. Johanna KLIER |
|
GDR |
|
12.63 |
| 3. Lucyna LANGER |
|
POL |
|
12.65 |
| 4. Kerstin CLAUS |
|
GDR |
|
12.66 |
| 5. Grazyna RABSZTYN |
|
POL |
|
12.74 |
| 6. Irina LITOVCHENKO |
|
SOV |
|
12.84 |
| 7. Bettine GARTZ |
|
GDR |
|
12.93 |
| 8. Zofia BIELCZYK |
|
POL |
|
13.08 |
|