It’s a figure skater’s response, elegant and precise. Would the comparison with a “One Hit Wonder” apply to him?
Now it has to be said that Manfred Schnelldorfer speaks about himself with a critical distance, as if he were only an observer himself, for example when he won the gold medal at the age of 21, which makes him the only German Olympic champion in figure skating to this day. But then the 79-year-old laughs briefly, it’s a slightly rattling hehe laugh that’s hard to resist. “Well,” says Schnelldorfer, “I’d been in the business for ten years.” That’s often the case with the supposed one-time stars: Appearances are deceptive. Also at Schnelldorfer.
The appearance, for example, is that sunny, relaxed Coverboy smile that he still wears at 79. For decades he has been a welcome guest at Munich’s social celebrations, where he still spreads the easygoing nature of figure skating. Schnelldorfer has experienced tough times. And not just as a child.
In 1945, his mother gave the almost two-year-old to the Red Cross before she left the country with an American. “My father has been looking for me for two years.” He then found him and from then on Schnelldorfer grew up with two figure skaters. The father was an ice skating and tennis coach, and the stepmother was also a figure skater. “My father just put old skates under me and said: I’ll show you how it’s done in a moment.” But the boy could do it on the fly anyway.
Schnelldorfer’s life as a teenager: school, sleeping, skating.
The life of the family took place on the ice, soon Schnelldorfer only had school, sleep and ice skating. “From six-thirty until nine in the evening.” In the Prinzregentenstadion he drove up to six hours a day. And in the evenings, at the age of twelve, he walked home alone through the Isarauern in the dark. Irresponsible on the one hand. On the other hand, Schnelldorfer had long been an adult, at least on the ice, where he became German men’s champion for the first time at exactly this age.
Seven more titles and a placement crescendo followed, which almost inevitably had to lead to the grand finale. At 13 at an adult World Championships (11th), at 16 at the Olympics (8th), 1960 EM bronze, 1963 EM silver, then came the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck and the eternal duel with the Frenchman Alain Calmat, who briefly had previously defeated again at the European Championship. After the compulsory program he led. “And I had a fever of 41.”
Nobody was allowed to notice that, “because then the judges would certainly have given me deductions.” Calmat (“We were great friends and always did a lot together”) fell in the freestyle. Schnelldorfer (“I was more of a sporty runner than an artistic one”) ran the five minutes without making any mistakes, “but after four minutes I thought I was dying”. He was Olympic champion. And four weeks later he also became world champion. And then? he stopped.
“Today, of course, I see things differently,” says Schnelldorfer. Instead of continuing to study architecture, after winning the gold medal he could have joined the US figure skating circus, which was already lucrative at the time, “and certainly earned millions”. But on the one hand he had promised his parents not to do any of the so-called revues where you are out and about all year round. “And I had no idea about money or business, maybe that would have gone wrong too.” In addition, his nerves were a bit attacked. Already at 21? But even after ten years of professional figure skating.
Schnelldorfer stopped figure skating, continued studying, then became national figure skating coach, but not for long, married several times, had three children, got involved in projects as managing director several times, for example in the sports area of Schwabylon or later in a sports shop in Attaching, which he took over from footballer Gerd Müller, tried it as a singer, worked as a model. Economically, it all only worked so moderately, as a model and in attaching he earned well, says Schnelldorfer, but 15 years ago his reserves were used up. Today he lives in Sendling and has stowed away the trophies in boxes, “I’ve cleaned them long enough”. His ice skates are no longer there, “they are in Regensburg in the House of Bavarian History”.
Germany’s only figure skating Olympic champion will be 80 on May 2 and says today about Munich: “It’s no longer a sports city, it’s a football city today.” Back then, for example, Munich was the center of figure skating. “But today a sport that conveys aesthetics is difficult to sell.” You always need opponents and a fight, and that’s why team sports.
And the ice doesn’t appeal to him anymore? “Of course it would still work, ice skating is like cycling.” But if you did more in the Prinze than just go in circles, you would be kicked off the ice immediately. That’s too boring for him.
That’s why he’s walking now. “Three hours every day.” walking? “No! Without sticks, my sense of balance is far too good for that.”