Paul Falk
Paul Falk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Born | Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany | 21 December 1921||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 20 May 2017 Queidersbach, Germany | (aged 95)||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Figure skating career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country | ![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Retired | 1952 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Paul Falk (German pronunciation: [paʊ̯l ˈfalk] ; 21 December 1921 – 20 May 2017) was a German pair skater. Born in Dortmund, Germany, he skated with Ria Baran and became two-time World champion and 1952 Olympic champion. Baran and Falk married during their active international figure skating.[1]
The pair skated for the club Düsseldorfer EG and had no coach. Until 1951 Baran and Falk were not able to participate in international competitions because Germany was excluded from international sport after World War II. They were the first couple who performed side by side double jumps and they also invented the Lasso-Lift. Baran and Falk were never defeated in amateur competition.
In 1951 Falk was voted the male athlete of the year in Germany. After winning the Olympics in 1952 they turned professional and worked for Holiday on Ice. Falk's profession outside athletics was as a precision mechanic. In 1993 pair were inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame.[2] He died 8+1⁄2 months before Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot won the gold medal for pairs skating at the 2018 Winter Olympics.[1]
Results
[edit](pairs with Ria Baran)
Event | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 |
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Winter Olympic Games | 1st | |||||
World Championships | 1st | 1st | ||||
European Championships | 1st | 1st | ||||
German Championships | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st |
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Paul Falk Bio, Stats, and Results". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
- ^ Hines, James R. (2011). Historical dictionary of figure skating. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810868595.
- 1921 births
- 2017 deaths
- German male pair skaters
- Figure skaters at the 1952 Winter Olympics
- Olympic figure skaters for Germany
- Olympic gold medalists for Germany
- Olympic medalists in figure skating
- World Figure Skating Championships medalists
- European Figure Skating Championships medalists
- Medalists at the 1952 Winter Olympics
- Sportspeople from Dortmund
- 21st-century German people
- 20th-century German sportspeople
- German figure skating biography stubs
- German Winter Olympic medalist stubs