Table of Contents
Biography Of Katarina Witt
Katarina Witt was born in Staaken, East Germany, on December 3rd, 1965. In her pursuit of new challenges, she continues to branch out into other sectors of work, gaining expertise in figure skating, producing, presenting, acting, and writing. She is also a popular motivational speaker at business gatherings.
2-4-6-8 Her Figure Skating Career And Winnings
Katarina Witt’s history and figure-skating career are unparalleled: she is a quadruple World Champion, six-time European Champion, and eight-time National Champion, in addition to two Olympic triumphs. Katarina Witt’s brilliant amateur career comes to an end after the 1988 World Championships. She will co-headline her first professional tours in the United States and Canada for the next three years with World Champion and Calgary Olympic Champion Brian Boitano. The show “Witt and Boitano Skating” is so popular that a figure skating show at Madison Square Garden in New York is sold out for the first time in 10 years.
In 1993-94, she returns to amateur sport and competes for the third time in the Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. She then spends ten years touring the United States and Canada as a celebrity guest of the figure skating shows “Stars on Ice” and “Champions on Ice,” as well as competing in several international professional competitions.
With her own production business, WITH WITT, she conceptualises, creates, heads, and produces many of the international ice show performances. Katarina Witt has travelled around the world numerous times to show figure skating fans her unique combination of athleticism and creative ability.
Social Engagement And Professional Life
In 1995, Katarina Witt established the production firm WITH WITT Sports & Entertainment GmbH. The firm establishes new standards in the skating production industry, creating live event shows for US and German television such as “Divas on Ice,” “Katarina & Friends,” “Enjoy the Stars,” and “Winter Magic.”
Katarina has been a figure skating analyst for American and German television networks like as NBC, CBS, ABC, ZDF, and ARD since 1991, when they broadcast World Championships and Olympic Games.
In the meanwhile, Katarina immerses herself in the worlds of cinema and theatre. In 1990, she wins an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance in Classical Music/Dance for her role in the highly acclaimed art film “Carmen on Ice.” Katarina may be seen in the famous television series “Frasier” (1993) as well as the hit film ““Jerry Maguire” is a film based on the (1996). In 1998, she co-stars with Robert De Niro and Jean Reno in the Hollywood film “Ronin,” as Russian figure skater Natascha Kirilova. In 2009, she made her theatrical debut in the Berlin Cathedral as “Amour” in the play “Everyman.” For the first time in prime time television, she starred in the stalker thriller “The enemy in my life” (SAT 1) in 2012.
In her memoir “My Years Between Duty and Free Skating” (“Meine Jahre Zwischen Pflicht und Kür”), Katarina speaks about her life and experiences throughout politically tumultuous times. More than 10 years later, in her fitness book “Fit with Kati Witt,” she offers advice and solutions for a better, more happy existence. The English-language book “Only with Passion” is based on her own life storey and talks with her experiences as a teenage athlete.
Katarina’s record collection grows by one in 1998. For the second and last time following Marilyn Monroe, her cover storey in the December issue of the American PLAYBOY becomes the world’s most successful and sold-out edition. It’s also exported to a number of nations.
Katarina concludes her 37-year career as a figure skater with a FAREWELL TOUR in Germany in 2008, bringing an emotional and dramatic chapter to a close in her professional life.
Katarina Witt is named chairperson of the 2018 Munich Olympic bid committee in 2010 and 2011, and she commits herself entirely to this responsible sports policy role.
Katarina reviews stages of her exciting and rich life with exclusive photographs in the illustrated book “SO MUCH LIFE” and the 60-minute ARD TV-Special “A JOURNEY TO MYSELF,” in which she meets and interviews companions such as Jutta Müller, Rudi Cerne, Ingo Politz, Brian Boitano, Robert DeNiro, and her parents on the occasion of her 50th birthday in 2015.
Katarina is a devoted and long-term BMW cooperation partner, having been a passionate BMW-SPORT and now BMW-CLASSIC ambassador. She has been a “DISNEY ON ICE” ambassador for more than three years, and a national and worldwide ambassador for the social lottery DPL since 2016, with George Clooney, Rafael Nadal, and Desmond Tutu.
Katarina will compete in her 9th Olympic Winter Games in 2018, as well as her 6th time as a TV Olympic and skating expert for the ARD.
In 2017, she co-founded “BUSINESS MEETS SPORT” alongside footballer Steffen Freund, a World Cup and Champions League champion, and entrepreneur Karsten Tornow. They hope to raise awareness of small and medium-sized companies’ support for regional sports and athletes through the BUSINESS CHAMPION AWARD and the series of events they’ve developed.
Katarina Witt is active with a number of organisations that promote sports, the environment, and social concerns in addition to her numerous entrepreneurial and creative endeavours.
Katarina Witt has been a founding member of LAUREUS SPORT FOR GOOD since 2000, together with over 60 other sports luminaries. The initiative’s objective is to help children in crisis regions by encouraging them to participate in sports and improve their social integration.
Katarina has long advocated for environmental conservation, particularly the German Blue Angel accreditation for products and services. In the countrywide Deutsche Welle TV campaign “We are Germany,” she is also fighting bigotry and advocating for tolerance alongside footballer Jerome Boateng.
The issue that is dearest to her heart has not changed “The Katarina Witt Foundation was established in 2005. Katarina’s charity seeks to assist physically disabled children and teenagers. She is pleased of the accomplishments of the last 12 years, including the more than 250 projects that have been completed across the world thanks to the generosity of numerous contributors.
Katarina Witt Quotes
“Figure skating is a mixture of art and sport.”
– Katarina Witt
“Almost nothing is presented to you on a silver platter. You have to really work for it.”
– Katarina Witt
“It’s not like I didn’t do anything for 10 years and chose a new profession. I’ve been on the ice a lot. I’m not an outsider.”
– Katarina Witt
“I can’t say, ‘It doesn’t matter if you win or lose.’ It’s not true. You go in to win.”
– Katarina Witt
“I never really like to skate in an empty ice rink; I always need the attention of an audience.”
– Katarina Witt
“I was the very first athlete in East Germany allowed to go professional.”
– Katarina Witt
“I was an athlete. And I proved I didn’t win just because I was pretty. I was good, too.”
– Katarina Witt
“When you’re young, you don’t think very far ahead. You just think in terms of the next day, the next week, the next competition. You don’t think about injuries that could threaten your long-term health.”
– Katarina Witt
“When you see the audiences and the smiling faces at the shows it really makes up for the work that you put in. I have a job I really love so whatever hecticness comes up – I’ll just deal with it.”
– Katarina Witt
“The desire to really compete again has been there for a long time.”
– Katarina Witt
“I learned not to depend on other people. I needed support, but it’s you who has to go out and deliver.”
– Katarina Witt
“Competitions make me nervous. When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating and not, ‘I have to do this to win.’ I forget it is a competition.”
– Katarina Witt
“As an athlete, you choose your sport and are drawn into it but your passion should never be driven by fame and fortune but a desire to create something special that people will always remember.”
– Katarina Witt
“Sometimes I even now feel like a stranger in my country. But I knew there would be problems because I had seen the world as a skater. And now? A lot of people in eastern Germany have lost jobs, rents went up, food costs went up, unemployment went to 20 percent. Freedom is good, but it is not easy.”
– Katarina Witt
“I want to see sunrises in the mountains. You never get to see such things enough in a lifetime. I want to see more.”
– Katarina Witt
“When I get up, I have a cup of coffee, surf the Internet, then do a half-hour run.”
– Katarina Witt
“I’m the sort of person who needs a big mountain in front of me to climb.”
– Katarina Witt
“I never had a serious injury that kept me out of a big competition. Now everyone has injuries – to their feet or their knees or their backs.”
– Katarina Witt
“Money was never the motivation. It never should be in sports.” Katarina Witt
“It’s hard work to make a four-minute program look effortless and elegant.”
– Katarina Witt
“Every man prefers to look at a well-shaped woman instead of a rubber ball.”
– Katarina Witt
“When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition.”
– Katarina Witt
“I hope that I can maintain my skating as long as possible.”
– Katarina Witt
“Skating taught me to set a goal and to block out other things and just focus on this one thing.”
– Katarina Witt
“I started the class late. The teacher said I would have to learn as much in half a year that the others learned in a year. I did it.”
– Katarina Witt
“When you reach a certain level, you live in a bubble when all you think, dream and breathe is becoming the best athlete in the world.”
– Katarina Witt
“Sometimes, success almost haunts you. You want to be the best at everything you do and know you have to work hard.”
– Katarina Witt
“Too many times women try to be competitive with each other. We should help support each other, rather than try to be better than each other.”
– Katarina Witt
“I don’t want to compete. I want to skate for the joy. I get so nervous in competition. I get always sick. I had pressures enough in my life from skating.”
– Katarina Witt
Read Also: 40 Most Amusing Joe Dirt Quotes