Playbook: Katarina Witt

Wisdom from the most compelling women in sports

By David A. Keeps

Katarina Witt  Manny Millan

Figure skating is a mixture of art and sport. First you have to be a great athlete, and then you can focus on the artistry. It's hard work to make a four-minute program look effortless and elegant. Everything looks so easy only because we are in shape.

I remember the first competition I did was on my seventh birthday. I won. It was quite a nice present to give myself.

Training seven hours a day, you give up a lot of things, but I had fun. When I was a teenager I would secretly go into a disco and come back late at night, and then still be on the ice at seven o'clock in the morning. I was a normal young woman who had her needs, too! I had boyfriends. And I tell you, those athletes...

You do make a lot of sacrifices being an athlete, but you learn lessons for the rest of your life. Skating taught me to set a goal and to block out other things and just focus on this one thing. I learned not to depend on other people. I needed support, but it's you who has to go out and deliver.

Whatever has to get done, you don't bail out in the middle.

I never really like to skate in an empty ice rink; I always need the attention of an audience.

The meaning of the Olympics wasn't clear until I traveled throughout the United States. That kind of stardom wasn't supported in East Germany. You'd come home and they'd say, "That's nice, Katarina. Next year you'll have to prove you're still the best."

Because I was so well known, I was under complete control. [The East German secret police] kept files on me -- almost 4,000 pages. They bugged my telephones. When I traveled somebody always followed me. People pretended to be my friends, and I'd tell them things about my private life: It all ended up in the files. I saw love letters copied in my files, and I felt totally betrayed.

I can't say, "It doesn't matter if you win or lose." It's not true. You go in to win.

I was the very first athlete in East Germany allowed to go professional. The government said, "You bring home your second gold medal and we'll allow it." Then they kept most of the money I earned. It didn't matter; you couldn't buy anything in East Germany anyway. The sports system would help you deliver your best effort. I probably got more bananas for being an athlete!

Money was never the motivation. It never should be in sports.

Going into the 1994 Olympics I knew that I had no chance to win. I had my two gold medals already, so for me it was a different reason. I won my first gold medal 10 years earlier in Sarajevo. By 1994 Sarajevo was destroyed. I skated to Where Have All the Flowers Gone as a message of peace.

When I am producing a show like Divas on Ice, I rehearse six to eight hours a day. I try to get nine hours of sleep. When I get up, I have a cup of coffee, surf the Internet, then do a half-hour run.

I love food. I try to eat healthy, with vegetables and pasta. Sometimes I'll have a glass of red wine or piece of chocolate and think, Fine, I was never a skinny skater. I was always more womanly.

I never think about what I would be doing if I wasn't skating. I don't care. No ifs, whens or maybes. I never waste time thinking what could have been.

I've had a lot of happy days in my life. The idea of marriage, which is eternal, I'm afraid of. I've seen so many things that haven't been forever. I'd like to have kids, but I don't think the moment is right. You never know, you always have an excuse. Maybe when it happens, it just happens.

For more great features -- including stories on America's best motorcycle racers and extreme skier Kristen Ulmer, plus gift ideas for every type of athlete -- check out Sports Illustrated Women's December/January issue, on newsstands now.

Copyright © 2001 CNN/Sports Illustrated An AOL Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines.