Bess, Sabina

Sabine Bess ( German: Sabine Baeß ; born March 15, 1961 , Dresden , East Germany ) - figure skater from East Germany .

Sports Awards
Figure skating
World Championships
Bronze	Vienna 1979	pair skating
Silver	Hartford 1981	pair skating
Gold	Copenhagen 1982	pair skating
Silver	Helsinki 1983	pair skating
Bronze	Ottawa 1984	pair skating
European Championships
Bronze	Gothenburg 1979	pair skating
Gold	Sarajevo 1982	pair skating
Gold	Dortmund 1983	pair skating
Silver	Budapest 1984	pair skating

She trained in Karl-Marx-Stadt with the famous coach Irena Salzmann, played for the club SK Karl-Marx-Stadt, paired with Tassilo Tirbach . In 1977 , after the second consecutive bronze at the GDR championship, the couple got into the national team. Coach I. Salzmann professed a sporty, athletic style, relied on complex individual elements (primarily the release of a triple rittberger). Progressing rapidly, the couple took 3rd place at the European and World Championships in 1979 . Then there was a certain decline in his career, partner T. Tirbach suffered an injury, because of which the couple missed the GDR and European Championships in 1981 . However, having recovered to the World Cup, she showed a confident and complex program with an unusually difficult set of emissions: a triple rittberger , a triple sheepskin coat , a double axel and a double rittberger (the latter was first performed immediately upon leaving support). In the 1981/82 season, the couple is most successful in winning the championships of the GDR, Europe and the world, everywhere cleanly, in pace, clearly and synchronously performing complex programs. At the World Championships in 1983 they again performed both programs in the purest way, however, in the most acute struggle, they lost to the Soviet pair E. Valova - O. Vasiliev , who mastered the more difficult triple toe loop jump with one judicial vote.

The couple’s performances at both olympiads were unsuccessful, where she, being a favorite, unexpectedly made a mistake in the short program on simple elements: in 1980 T. Tirbach was unable to raise S. Bess into mandatory simple support for the hip with one revolution, in 1984 he unexpectedly performed instead the simplest double rittberger jump is only single (the Canadian judge did not even notice this error and did not lower the mark for the technique).

Sabina Bess was rather in the leading role in the pair, she was remembered for her stunning outbursts (a set of a triple rittberger and a triple sheepskin coat remains the most difficult today), performed at a pace, at high speed, with a huge span. Support has always remained a weak spot for couples from the GDR. The couple always skated to modern instrumental music (often electronic), which, however, was quite organically consistent with the style of skating.

Now she works as a trainer in the club TSK Berlin (among students - Stephanie Dankert, took 5th place in the German championship). Lives in Oranienburg ( Brandenburg Land), has a son.