Ilke Wyludda at the 1996 Olympic Games (© Getty Images)
World Athletics is deeply saddened to hear that Ilke Wyludda, Germany’s 1996 Olympic discus champion, died on Sunday (1) at the age of 55.
Wyludda was born in Leipzig on 28 March 1969 and took up athletics as a child. By the age of 16 she had become a double European U20 medallist, claiming discus gold and shot put silver at the 1985 event in Cottbus. She won the first of her two world U20 discus titles the following year and gained double European U20 gold in 1987 before retaining her world U20 crown in 1988. That was the year she set the still-standing world U20 discus record of 74.40m.
In total, she set 14 world U20 records – 12 in the discus and two in the shot put – between August 1986 and September 1988. She also achieved a 41 competition win streak between 1989 and 1991, her victories in that time including the first of her senior European title wins in 1990.
Her two world silver medals were secured in 1991 and 1995 and she won her second senior continental title in 1994. Her Olympic win came in 1996 in Atlanta, where she threw 69.96m.
Wyludda’s PB of 74.56m from 1989 still places her joint second on the world all-time list.
“With Ilke Wyludda, a figurehead of German athletics has unfortunately left us far too early at the age of 55,” said German Athletics Federation Chairman Idriss Gonschinska. “The athletics family mourns the loss of a truly great athlete who fought against injuries and illnesses throughout her life and yet remained committed to her sport for decades.”
Wyludda retired in 2000, after finishing seventh at that year’s Olympic Games in Sydney, and went on to become a physiotherapist before studying medicine. She returned to competition and became a Paralympic finalist in London in 2012 after having her right leg amputated due to a bacterial infection.
She went on to claim shot put bronze at the 2015 World Para Athletics Championships and decided to end her athletics career in 2017.
World Athletics
