Word: witt
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...month after her nationals victory, early in 1986, Thomas flew off to Geneva for a summit with the Brooke Shields of Sarajevo, the G.D.R's great Witt (pronounced Vitt). And, for the first time since the Olympics, Witt had to settle for second. Still only 18, Debi was world champion, and the single word she had used to sum herself up on Stanford's application forms suddenly seemed an understatement: "Invincible." Within a year, that would change. Tasting some of Chin's medicine, on two throbbing Achilles tendons, Thomas lost the '87 nationals to Jill Trenary. Then...
Maybe Thomas was reacting to Witt when Debi finagled a consultation with the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. "I couldn't believe it," she says. "Standing right there. Baryshnikov. I was so inspired. The neat thing is, I think he was inspired too." He suggested a few points of emotional emphasis, an exaggerated movement here and there. "Could you do this?" he asked gently. Then he turned her over to a colleague, former American Ballet Theater Soloist George de la Pena. "I found her to be extraordinarily intelligent," says De la Pena., "and extraordinarily shy. A lot of people look...
Underscoring her sixth straight European championship with seven perfect sixes, Witt is poised to go out on top at 22. East Germany's system of athletics may be the acclaimed model of scientific selection, but Witt ended up the sweetheart of Karl-Marx-Stadt for the purest reasons: her kindergarten happened to be next door to the skating hall, and her parents were softhearted. In Valley Girl German (Rhine Valley), she explains, "I bugged them until they finally gave in and registered me for skating classes. They never thought it would...
...that Witt's imposing coach, Jutta Muller, has dragged her husband Bringfried into Witt's service. He wrestles her bundles of fan mail that bulge with impassioned letters from both sides of the Berlin Wall, including the marriage proposals of "U.S. boys," from locations, Witt says, "you'd never think cared about figure skating." Considering her appearance, this is a possibility. "If she were an American," the U.S.'s Fleming once said, "her face would be everywhere. I mean, look...
Decidedly not an American, Witt is proud of her distinction as the "worker's hero" and thinks of herself as a "diplomat in warm-ups." Talking in Karl-Marx-Stadt with journalists, including TIME's James Graff, she says, "When I do well, coming from a socialist country like the G.D.R., other countries have grounds to respect us. It is the working people who provide the basis for me to pursue skating at all. In a way, by skating and appearing on television, I'm saying a little danke schon to the public." Her "you're welcome" comes...