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Eckhard Lesse

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Eckhard Lesse
Personal information
Born(1948-12-01)1 December 1948[1]
Badeborn, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Height1.79 m (5 ft 10+1⁄2 in)
Weight62 kg (137 lb)
Sport
SportAthletics
EventLong-distance running
ClubSC Magdeburg
Medal record
Representing  East Germany
European Athletics Championships
Silver medal – second place 1974 Rome Marathon

Eckhard Lesse (born 1 December 1948) is a German former long-distance runner. Lesse represented East Germany at the 1972 Summer Olympics and won silver in men's marathon at the 1974 European Championships.

Career

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Lesse represented East Germany at the 1971 European Championships in Helsinki, placing 24th in the 10,000 m.[2] Lesse broke the East German marathon record for the first time in April 1972, running 2:13:19.4 in Karl-Marx-Stadt;[3][4] he was the only East German selected for the 1972 Olympic marathon,[3] where he placed 25th in 2:22:49.6.[1]

Lesse broke the national record again in Manchester in June 1973, running 2:12:24.[4][5] Later that year he placed third in the strong Fukuoka Marathon, behind Olympic champion Frank Shorter and Canada's Brian Armstrong;[6] Track & Field News ranked Lesse the world's second best marathoner that year.[7]

At the 1974 European Championships in Rome Lesse placed second to Great Britain's Ian Thompson in 2:14:57.4.[2] He placed second to Shorter in the 1974 Fukuoka Marathon, his time of 2:12:02.4 being another East German record;[4][8] that year, he was ranked third in the world, behind Thompson and Shorter.[7] Lesse was ranked in the world's top ten for a final time in 1975,[7] when he placed fifth in Fukuoka in 2:12:42.6.[9]

Lesse remained active in sports after his athletic career, and was president of his sports club, SC Magdeburg, in late 2009 and early 2010.[10]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Eckhard Lesse Bio, Stats and Results". Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  2. ^ a b Jalava, Mirko (2014). "European Athletics Championships Zürich 2014: Statistics Handbook" (PDF). European Athletics. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  3. ^ a b Martin, David E.; Gynn, Roger W. H. (2000). The Olympic Marathon. Human Kinetics. p. 280. ISBN 978-0-88-011969-6. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  4. ^ a b c "GER Record Progressions- Road". Association of Road Racing Statisticians. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  5. ^ "Lesse siegte in DDR-Bestzeit". Neues Deutschland (in German). 4 June 1973. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  6. ^ "World Marathon Rankings for 1973". Association of Road Racing Statisticians. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  7. ^ a b c "World Rankings — Men's Marathon" (PDF). Track & Field News. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  8. ^ "Shorter wins". Hutchinson News. 9 December 1974. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  9. ^ "World Marathon Rankings for 1975". Association of Road Racing Statisticians. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  10. ^ "Präsident Lesse tritt beim SC Magdeburg zurück". Märkische Onlinezeitung (in German). 12 January 2010. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
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