Gerd Bonk ( German: Gerd Bonk ; August 26, 1951 , Limbach , Saxony , East Germany - October 20, 2014 , Greitz , Thuringia , Germany ) - East German weightlifter , two-time medalist at the Summer Olympic Games in Munich (1972) and Montreal (1976), multiple winner of the world championships.
| Gerd Bonk | |
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| personal information | |
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| A country |  GDR |
| Specialization | |
| Club | SC Karl-Marx-Stadt, Karl-Marx-Stadt, East Germany |
| Date of Birth | August 26, 1951 (68 years old) |
| Place of Birth | Limbach , Saxony , East Germany |
| Date of death | |
| A place of death | |
| Sports career | 1969-1980 |
| Trainers | Klaus Kroll |
| Height | 187 cm |
| The weight | 142-151 kg |
Sports career
He began his career in the athletics club at BSG Motor Nema Netzschkau, in 1967 he set the GDR junior record in shot put (17.82 m). Being engaged in weightlifting at the same time, he began to show more progress in it and in 1969 he concentrated on this sport, training under the direction of Klaus Kroll in the sports club Karl-Marx-Stadt. In 1971, he first won the national heavyweight championship.
Having won a bronze medal at the Summer Olympic Games in Munich (1972), the athlete brought the GDR weightlifting the second Olympic medal in history, building on the success two days ago of his teammate Stefan Grutzner . In 1975, in his special discipline, aftershock , he was the first East German weightlifter to set a world record. In 1976, he established another world achievement, this time in a jerk . In the same year, he won a silver medal at the Summer Olympics in Montreal.
In 1980, the athlete was diagnosed with severe diabetic disease. Nevertheless, he was nominated for the upcoming Olympic Games in Moscow, as he had good results and won a gold medal at the European Championships in Varna (1979) . However, due to the positive result of the internal doping test , the weightlifter was excluded from the team shortly before the start of the Olympic competition. After that, he ended his sports career as a 15-time champion of the GDR in various weightlifting disciplines.
Having completed his speeches, he worked in his hometown of Limbach as a master in the automotive industry. In 1989, at the age of 37, he was transferred to disability. In recent years, he has been confined to a wheelchair.
After the federal law on assistance to victims of doping came into force in August 2002, Bonk was declared injured and received a lump sum compensation of 10,438 euros. As studies have shown, for example, in 1979, an athlete took a total of 12,775 milligrams of steroids, of which 11,550 milligrams was Oral Turinabol. In 2002, he was awarded the Georg von Opel Prize in the Special Wrestlers nomination. The weightlifter himself described his situation with the words: "Sacrificed to the GDR, forgotten in a united Germany."