- Erhard Keller
Erhard Keller (born
24 December 1944 inMunich ,Germany ) is a former speed skater.Competing for
West Germany , Erhard Keller specialised on the sprint distances – the 500 m and the 1,000 m – and he joined the world's sprint skating elite in 1965. In December 1967, he equalledYevgeny Grishin 's world record on the 500 m by skating that distance in 39.5 seconds and the next month, on28 January 1968 , he beat Grishin's world record, to the very day five years after Grishin had set it [Keller 1968, p. 124-126.] .Keller, studying
dentistry at the Munich University at the time, then participated in the1968 Winter Olympics inGrenoble . There, the "flying dentist" became Olympic Champion on the 500 m (a distance in which he was still the world record holder), making him the first German Olympic Champion in speed skating in history – before any other "East German" or "West German" or "German" Olympic Champions in speed skating that would follow [Keller 1968, p. 178-187.] .In 1971, Keller became champion at the ISU Sprint Championships (the forerunner of the World Sprint Championships). The next year, he became Olympic Champion on the 500 m again (setting a new Olympic record in the process) at the
1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo. After the 1972 speed skating season, Keller became a professional speed skater and he graduated in dentistry in 1973. After 1974, Keller no longer participated in any international tournaments. He became a professional dentist in Munich in 1975 and only participated for a few more years in national tournaments.World records
Over the course of his career, Keller skated 6 world records (his 500 m world record of 38.0 equalling the existing world record; others would equal it too):
Personal records
To put these personal records in perspective, the last column ("WR") lists the official world records on the dates that Keller skated his personal records.
Note that the "small combination" was not an official ISU world record event until 1981.
Keller has an
Adelskalender score of 180.663 points.References
;Notes;Bibliography
* Eng, Trond. "All Time International Championships, Complete results 1889 - 2002". Askim, Norway, WSSSA Skøytenytt, 2002.
* Keller, Erhard. "74 Schritte zum Ziel, Inzell gab mir die Chance". Munich, Germany: Copress-verlag, 1968. (in German)External links
* [http://www.skateresults.com/skater/show/487 Erhard Keller at SkateResults.com]
* [http://www.desg.de/skater.php?anzeige=skater&skater=49 Erhard Keller at DESG ("Deutsche Eisschnelllauf Gemeinschaft")] (in German)
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