Ms. Namita Nayyar:
Who has been your greatest influence and motivator in your success in the field of your career?
Ms. Katarina Witt:
I think my greatest motivator and mentor was my coach Frau Mueller, who always kept me pushing through my training, and always making sure that I know that I have the talent to become a champion and that I was for her like a raw diamond, and she helped and made sure that I turned into one of the best figure skaters in the 80’s. I’m still very thankful and grateful to her and ofcourse my parents, who have always been there, helping me smoothen up or down in my skating career and besides the ice and motivation wise, I from a very early age on, I loved competition, I loved the pressure and I loved to be in a competition and just compete and I wanted to be the best in the world and I wanted to keep that success for many years, and I think that was motivation enough to stay in the amateur worlds in the entire 80s and have a great time at competitions and know great competitors, beside me, who made it not easy for me to keep winning.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
You won six consecutive European Championships (1983–1988), a feat only equaled by Sonja Henie among female skaters. How did you feel after giving such breakthrough performances?
Ms. Katarina Witt:
Well Sonja Henie actually has 3 Olympic gold medals, I have 2 Olympic gold medals, but still I’m in almost one successful line like she is, she is ofcourse the most successful figure skater ever, but she was in her 30s and I am luckily still alive and I have tried to follow her footsteps and she has become such a great legend as a figure skater and then a big Hollywood star in America, but at the same time she has been very controversial too because during her athletes time, during the 30s and 40s, which were terrible years in Europe with the Second World War too, but as a figure skater she has claimed incredible success and I myself say Sonja Henie is the most successful figure skater but I’m right after her and so far luckily I’m the only woman in figure skating who has won 2 consecutive gold medals in figure skating. But actually I am hoping that one day one girl would reach the same success that I did. But I’m so honored after all that so many people remember my figure skating career and still tell me how much and how passionately they followed my skating during my skating career.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
You posed nude for Playboy magazine for their December 1998 issue, which was the second ever sold-out issue of the magazine. What was your inspiration and motivation behind this endeavor of yours?
Ms. Katarina Witt:
The Playboy was after me for 10 years! They wanted already that I would pose for them in 1988 but that was way too close on my amateur career. And then in 1998, I was somehow old enough, mature enough and I was in heights of my career. I never used that posing to become more famous. I think at this point, I was already so settled in my career and I found that figure skating was such a family sport and such ice-princess image that I wanted to rebound a little bit and celebrate feminism, and that’s why I did it.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
You have also written an excellent book on health and fitness tips, “Healthy and Fit with Kati Witt”. Would you like to share some of these with our readers?
Ms. Katarina Witt:
People have always asked me how would I stay so healthy and fit, and what made me so happy and alive, and in that book I tried to share what my experiences are and its more about how to stay healthy in life, not about being fit like a competitor but being healthy and giving easy exercise advice to get more fit and more healthy through life.
Video
Disclaimer
The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
