Katarina Witt - 1982 World Championships Short Program

[TheBob1901]

Funny how the female commentator remarks that Katarina Witt (here at age 16 in 1982) was a great jumper but not the greatest presenter. By the time of the 1988 Winter Olympics (6 years later), other figure skaters clearly out-jumped Katarina Witt - she relied on her artistic presentation to win her the gold medal (as well as the 'judging').

[officeaddict33]

Terrible posture, which never improved much over her career.

[ThePaultrevor]

Great champion, very beautiful, very nice, even too perfect.

[sunkid77]

Wow, what a great program at this young age! Technically this is her most difficult program she has ever skated.

[KleverGirl1]

Her talent is simply astounding. The stuffy old GDR really had her to thank and I'm glad that they didn't stifle her talent. Frau Muller certainly knew how to train champion skaters. Her costume is very nice as well and she has the figure to match.

[Moose4Choice]

This was perhaps the best short program I have ever seen.

[barkingtree88]

Heroic music really suited her.

[AncientBloodline]

Katarina Witt is by far the prettiest skater ever.

[barkingtree88]

yeah, I saw her naked!!

[clarriona]

poor you.

[HattieLovesCattie]

@barkingtree88 Snort,I bet you did,in that Playboy mag.

[barkingtree88]

@HattieLovesCattie who didn't??

[HattieLovesCattie]

@barkingtree88 I only saw it coz my friend's hubby bought the mag! LOL Her buddy Brian Boitano ( for some reason ) begged her not to pose nude.I read later she got $600,000 for it and later built a vacation home with it in Germany for ( you guessed it ) $600,000.:)

[defraudo]

She is

[katarinadawn]

mi names katarina

[yodabeesh]

Beautiful combination jump! I wonder if she ever dared to try 3-3 combos in her time? Looks like she could have done one with that combo. I guess doing ONE triple was hard enough in that time :)

[ncsapianist]

A triple flip and Triple Loop were Katarinas most difficult jumps. Midorio Ito was the first to land a triple/triple. Odd how thats in the shadow of her being the first to land a triple axel. This is a fun program though, eh?

[Astardis]

In her early years she indeed was a remarkable jumper and yes, she probably would have been capable of doing a triple/triple combo. But as someone else has stated here on another occasion jumps weren't as necessary then as they are now. And Katarina soon focussed on doing only the absolutely required jumps. Remember, Debi Thomas did triple/triple and still didn't manage to beat Katarina. So she probably never felt the need to go for a more difficult combination.

[indiatree]

I think the rule was that you could have vocals as long as there are no distinguishable words......(humming,etc) These vocals were sort of given a heavy electronic effect on the tape track and were maybe judged to fall into that category of not being clearly defined words.

[MissIzzy]

Okay, I'm assuming that music was originally from some other show and TNG just aped it for their own theme, but it is weird to see someone skate to a techno remix of Star Trek: The Next Generation theme music five years before the show first aired!

[sandraskates]

You got me so curious I had to check this out...According to IMDB, the theme from Star Trek: TNG was borrowed from Star Trek: The Motion Picture which was released in 1979. 1982 techno remix--sure, makes perfect sense!

[MissIzzy]

Ah, thanks!