Diana Gansky, née Sachse (born December 14, 1963 in Bergen auf Rügen

Bergen auf Rügen

Bergen auf Rügen is the capital of the former district of Rügen in the middle of the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Since 1 January 2005, Bergen has moreover been the administrative seat of the Amt of Bergen auf Rügen, which with a population of over 23,000 is...

, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 track and field

Track and field

Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...

 athlete. She won an Olympic medal and was one of the world's best discus throw

Discus throw

The discus throw is an event in track and field athletics competition, in which an athlete throws a heavy disc—called a discus—in an attempt to mark a farther distance than his or her competitors. It is an ancient sport, as evidenced by the 5th century BC Myron statue, Discobolus...

ers. She represented East Germany and was the 1986 European champion (with her birth name Sachse). In 1987 and 1988 she was second in both the world championship and the Olympic games.

At 17 years old she was the 1981 junior European champion, but she needed a few more years before she was able to compete with the already strong discus team of East Germany. She stood in the shadows of Martina Hellmann

Martina Hellmann

Martina Hellmann, née Opitz , is a retired German track and field athlete who represented East Germany. She was the Olympic champion in the discus throw at the 1988 Summer Olympics. She also won the World Championship in that event in 1983 and again in 1987.Hellmann was sixteen years old when she...

 (who she only beat at the 1986 European championship). For a long time she trained with Gabriele Reinsch

Gabriele Reinsch

Gabriele Reinsch is a German track and field athlete. She represented East Germany in the Olympic games in the discus throw....

 the world record holder since July 1988 when she threw 76.80 meters. At the end of the 2004 season she is the only woman in the world who has thrown further than 70 meters at 24 international tournaments.

She represented ASK Vorwärts Potsdam and trained with Lothar Hillebrand. During her active career she was 1.84 meters tall and weighed 92 kilograms. She studied sports science, and at the time of German reunification

German reunification

German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...

 she became a self-employed physiotherapist. Later she became active on the senior sports circuit and became the 2002 European champion. Gansky set her personal best (74.08 metres) on June 20, 1987 in Karl-Marx-Stadt

Chemnitz

Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...

; an East German record until July 9, 1988.

Achievements

Representing
1981	European Junior Championships	Utrecht Utrecht (city) Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features... , Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...	1st
1986	European Championships	Stuttgart Stuttgart Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million .... , West Germany West Germany West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....	1st	71.36 m
1987	World Championships	Rome, Italy	2nd	70.12 m
1988	Olympic Games Athletics at the 1988 Summer Olympics - Women's discus throw The Women's Discus Throw event at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea had an entrylist of 22 competitors, with two qualifying groups before the final took place on Thursday September 29, 1988.-Medalists:-Records:...	Seoul, South Korea	2nd	71.88 m