Goldengirl

In a classroom in a Luckenwalde junior school, thirty miles south of Berlin, sit 34 eleven-year-olds, straight-backed, arms folded, girls with hair ribbons, boys in white shirts. One place is empty: the center column, second from front. ‘Nobody sits there until after the Spartakiad,’ explains head teacher Heinz Krämer. ‘That place is reserved for the outstanding athlete of the class. It is the place Ursula Krüll once occupied. I taught her myself,’ he proudly adds, his thoughts darting back to 1969.

Ursula is currently the fastest girl runner in the world. When she was no bigger than Herr Krämer’s pupils, she competed in the Spartakiad, a festival of sports at regional and national level involving over four million children. She was a slimly built child with two red hair ribbons. Those ribbons got to be a familiar sight as she raced to easy victories over all other girls of her age group.

East Germany spends five per cent of its national income on sports development. The State Secretariat for Physical Culture and Sport draws together athletic activities in schools, factories, co-operatives and recreation zones into a cohesive program, ensuring that talents like Ursula’s are fostered from childhood through maturity. She was sent to one of the twenty sports schools for children of precocious physical ability. At twelve, she was already listed as a potential competitor for the Olympic Games. At seventeen, she won her first national title, over 100 metres, and at eighteen, in 1976, she competed in the Montreal Olympics. She qualified for the Final, but was not among the medal-winners. ‘It was the experience I went for,’ she explains. ‘Montreal was never intended as my Games. I’ve been working to a ten-year program since I was twelve. Montreal was for other girls. Moscow... Moscow is mine.’

At twenty-two, Ursula is ready for Moscow. Her teasing gray-blue eyes, cutely bobbed brown hair and svelte figure may not accord with stereotypes of Eastern-bloc athletes, but her progress places her emphatically in the tradition of East Germany’s former sprint queen, the powerful Renate Stecher. Over the last three years, Ursula has headed the world rankings for the 100- and 200-metre dash events. In 1978, she zipped to a convincing double in the European Cup Final. Since then she has not lost a race. And she has got faster each year. Going into 1980, she looked the undisputed claimant for Olympic gold.