German Hartwig Gauder, former Olympic, World and European race walking champion, died of a heart attack at age 65.
Gauder won the gold for the DDR in race walking at 50 kilometers at the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and he was bronze in Seoul eight years later.
He also celebrated a year earlier at the 1987 World Championships in Rome and the European Championships in Stuttgart. Later he came in third at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo, representing united Germany, and also won bronze at the 1990 European Championships in Split.
Gauder, called by the media the “Walker of the Century,” had heart problems then, and had a transplant in 1996.
He completed several marathons with a new heart, including Berlin and New York, and in 2003 he made history by becoming the first person to climb Japan’s Mount Fuji with a transplanted heart.
