Silke MOLLER

The precocious sprinting talent of Silke Moller became evident from a very early age. Competing under her maiden name of Gladisch, and only two weeks after her 17th birthday, Silke finished second in the 100m and third in the 200m at the 1981 East German Junior Championships. On 23 August that year, she ran the first leg on the national 4 x 100m relay team which set a new world junior record at the European Junior Championships. By 1983, Gladisch had been elevated to the East German senior 4 x 100m relay squad, and at East Berlin on 31 July; this quartet broke the world record, setting a new time of 41.53sec. Later that year this same foursome won the gold medal at the World Championships in Helsinki.

Although Silke had quickly matured into one of the world's top sprinters, she found it difficult to obtain representational opportunities in international events other than in the relay, due to the depth of sprinting talent in East Germany at the time. Nevertheless, she was participating in a number of notable relay performances for East Germany, including a win at the 1985 European Cup in Moscow, and a new world record of 41.37sec at the 1985 World Cup in Canberra. In June 1986, Silke won the 100m and came second in the 200m at the national championships in Jena, and these performances gained her selection in both events at the 1986 European Championships in Stuttgart. At Stuttgart, Silke finished fourth in the 100m, only 0.01sec behind the bronze medallist, but two days later, she atoned for this disappointment by finishing third in the 200 final. Two days after that, on 31 August, she ran the first leg of East Germany's 4 x 100m relay team (see photo above with arm raised after the finish) which won the gold medal. (Ron Casey)

Up until 1987, Silke Moller's impact on the international sprinting scene had been primarily as a relay runner, having set two world records and won a gold medal at the 1986 European Championships as a member of the East German 4 x 100m relay team. This all changed in 1987, when Silke, still competing under her maiden name of Gladisch, emphatically demonstrated her sprinting capabilities in individual competition. Silke made a major breakthrough at the East German national championships in Potsdam on 20 August, when she won the 100m in 10.86sec, slashing her personal best and moving her to fifth on the all-time world list. Her performance in the 200m, held two days later, was even better, as she won by nearly a second in a new personal best time of 21.79sec, only 0.08sec outside the world record.

Only a week later, Silke was competing at the World Championships in Rome, where she showed she was a force to be reckoned with by winning her semi-final of the 100m in a wind-assisted 10.82sec. Her main adversary in the 100m final on 30 August was her compatriot Heike Drechsler, but the opposition never really got close as Silke, (see photo above in lane 6 by G.H. ©) won the gold medal by a metre from the long-striding Drechsler (lane 4) in 10.90sec. In the 200m, Silke blew the opposition away to win her second gold medal in a new personal best time of 21.74sec, again just missing the world record. In the 4 x 100m relay final held three days later, Silke got the East German quartet off to a good start, but her teammates could not maintain the momentum, and they finished second behind the USA. Silke was married in October that year, and thenceforth she competed under her married name of Moller. (Ron Casey)

Following her victories in the 100m and 200m at the 1987 World Championships in Rome, there was a lot of expectation that Silke Moller could repeat this achievement at the following year's Olympic Games in Atlanta. However, Moller was not the dominant force in 1988 that she had been the previous year, and her successes that year more came in the 4 x 100m relay, reverting to the pattern of her career prior to 1987. Early in the season, in an international match between East and West Germany, Moller (see photo above) ran the first leg for the East German 4 x 100m relay team which won in 42.53sec. In Seoul, Silke finished fifth in her 100m semi-final and failed to advance to the final. She made the final of the 200m, but she was never a competitive force, and finished fifth in 22.09sec.

Her final chance for an Olympic medal came in the 4 x 100m relay, where Moller led off the East German team which had the lead at the last changeover, but faded to finish a close second behind the USA. In 1989, Moller seemed to regain some of her 1987 form, when she won the 200m at the European Cup in August, followed by a victory in the same event at the World Cup in Barcelona in September. Silke also ran the first leg of the East German 4 x 100m relay team which won the gold medal at each of these meets, recording the fastest two times of the year.

In her last major championships before retirement, the 1990 European Championships in Split, Moller won the silver medal in the 100m behind compatriot Katrin Krabbe. Silke did not compete in the 200m, but she combined with Krabbe and two other teammates to win the gold medal in the 4 x 100m relay. (Ron Casey)