Gabriele Seyfert

Seyfert in 1968
Personal information
Born	(1948-11-23)23 November 1948 (age 77) Chemnitz,Soviet occupation zone of Germany
Height	1.60 m (5 ft 3 in)
Figure skating career
Country	East Germany
Skating club	SC Karl-Marx-Stadt
Retired	1972
Medal record Ladies'figure skating Representing East Germany Olympic Games 1968 Grenoble Ladies' singles World Championships 1970 Ljubljana Ladies' singles 1969 Colorado Springs Ladies' singles 1968 Geneva Ladies' singles 1967 Vienna Ladies' singles 1966 Davos Ladies' singles European Championships 1970 Leningrad Ladies' singles 1969 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Ladies' singles 1968 Västerås Ladies' singles 1967 Ljubljana Ladies' singles 1966 Bratislava Ladies' singles

Gabriele"Gaby" Seyfert (laterRüger, thenMesserschmidt, nowKörner, born 23 November 1948) is a German formerfigure skater. She is a two-time World champion (1969,1970), and the1968 Olympic silver medalist.

She is the first lady to successfully land a tripleloop jump in competition.

Seyfert skated for the clubSC Karl-Marx-Stadt and representedEast Germany. Her coach was her motherJutta Müller, who also coached 1984 and 1988 Olympic champion Katarina Witt. She was a long-time rival ofPeggy Fleming, but never defeated her.

In 1966, after two silver medals at the Europeans and theWorlds, she was voted as "theGDR female athlete of the year". She became the first woman to land a clean tripleloop.

Seyfert ended her figure skating career in 1970. Unlike Peggy Fleming, she was not allowed to skate professionally. Offers byHoliday on Ice were refused by East German authorities. She was aStasi informer under the codename "Perle".^[1]

Seyfert turned to coaching, and worked withAnett Pötzsch in the early 1970s.^[2] The East German coach hierarchy later transferred Pötzsch to Jutta Müller's group, and Seyfert ended her coaching career.

Seyfert was the only child of Wolfgang Seyfert and the former ice dancer and world famous coach, among themKatarina Witt,Jutta Müller.

She married ice dancerEberhard Rüger in 1972 and they had a daughter in 1974. She then married Jochen Messerschmidt. In 2011, she married Egbert Körner.^[3][4]

After ending her coaching career, Seyfert studied languages at university and worked as a professional translator. From 1985 to 1991, she led the ice ballet at theFriedrichstadtpalast in East Berlin, where she also skated occasionally. After the ice ballet was closed, she worked at a service industry business in Berlin. She lives in Berlin-Karow.

• Seyfert, Gaby:Da muss noch was sein: Mein Leben – mehr als Pflicht und Kür, 1998,ISBN 3-360-00869-3
• Seyfert, Gaby:Auf Wolke eins ist immer Platz. Single sucht Single, 2000,ISBN 3-360-00935-5
• Olga Fluegge,Gaby Seyfert: First Star of Eastern Germany

Awards
Preceded by Hannelore Suppe	East German Sportswoman of the Year 1966	Succeeded by Karin Janz

• 1948 births
• Living people
• German female single skaters
• Figure skaters at the 1964 Winter Olympics
• Figure skaters at the 1968 Winter Olympics
• Olympic figure skaters for the United Team of Germany
• Olympic figure skaters for East Germany
• Olympic silver medalists for East Germany
• Figure skaters from Chemnitz
• Olympic medalists in figure skating
• World Figure Skating Championships medalists
• European Figure Skating Championships medalists
• Medalists at the 1968 Winter Olympics
• 20th-century German sportswomen
• East German female figure skaters
• Sportspeople from Bezirk Karl-Marx-Stadt
• Stasi informants
• SC Karl-Marx-Stadt sportspeople

• Webarchive template wayback links
• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from October 2018