Christel Frese is a German former athlete who was successful as a 400-meter runner in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She competed for the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1972 Olympics. She won one silver and one bronze medal at European Championships with the 4x400-meter relay of the Federal Republic of Germany. In the years 1975-1977 she played in women's football for the SSG 09 Bergisch Gladbach and made her best at the German women's football championship in 1977.
Career
Christel Frese grew up in Meggen and was initially a member of the TV Meggen, where she trained under Gerd Manke. In 1964, she came to Cologne to study sports and joined the local Armeesportvereinigung Vorwärts. Her coach was Fredy Wehrmann, who supervised Frese at 49 German championships. Frese began her athletic career as a sprinter over 100 and 200 meters. She had her first medal in 1966, when she came in second place at the German Championships in the 4 x 100-meter relay with the ASV behind the representation of Hamburger SV. Then she switched to the 400-meter track. In 1968, she played her first international match in Buxtehude. Besides, the years 1969 and 1970 were the most successful years in Frese's career. In 1969, she won her first German championship over 400 meters and a bronze medal at the European Championships in Athens as the final runner of the 4 x 400 -meter relay. In 1970, for three times she affirmed the German record over 400 meters and on 22 August 1970 won at the European Cup in Budapest, the silver medal. Also she became vice European champion in the hall. Another second place behind Marilyn Neufville she achieved at the open AAA Championships in London. Christel Frese failed twice with her single medal at open air European Championships: In 1969, the West German team proclaimed the refusal to start for Jürgen May in the individual competitions and in 1971, in Helsinki Frese came only to the semifinals due to an injury-related training backlog. In 1971, she won the Internationales Stadionfest in Berlin. She took part in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, after she had recently improved the German record, but injured in the 400-meter interlude and thus could not compete for the season. Throughout her career, Christel Frese won 9 German and six European Championship titles and has run 15 German, 4 European and 3 world records. Totally she won 26 country battles. Personal achievements of Christel Frese:
She also worked as a trainer for VFL. Later, she went to TuS Halberbracht, a village club in Lennestadt, where she led the first goalkeeper training and later the training of the girls' football team.
Personal life
From 1968 to 2007, Christel Frese worked as a teacher of sports, mathematics and biology at the Marienschule. Among her students was Silke Rottenberg. She is a member of the Breed Breeding Association under the name Christel Frese-Gerber.
Sport achievements
Records
World records
In the limelight of the public, Christel Frese set a world record, which she ran on 19 September 1969 at the European Athletics Championships in Athens with the 4 x 400-meter relay. The achieved time of 3: 33,9 min, however, was undercut the next day by the British and the French squadron.
Christel Frese set another world record at the European Indoor Championships in Vienna on March 14, 1970, when she had reached the top of the 400m mark, the previous unofficial indoor best time of 55.29s, run by Natalya Petschonkina from the Soviet Union in 1968, at 53, 7s improved. However, this world record had an even shorter duration than that of Athens: already one and a half hours later, Marilyn Neufville starting for the Great Britain won the final race in the worldrecord time of 53.0 s ahead of Christel Frese in 53.1 s.
German records
Her first German record ran Christel Frese on June 15, 1969 in Copenhagen as a member of the 4 x 400-meter relay in 3: 48,4 min
In 1970, Christel Frese won three times German record over 400 meters :
52.7 s, scored on 16 July at the international match Germany-USA in Stuttgart 52.6 s, scored on August 8 in Berlin 52.4 s, scored on the 11th of October. With this achievement, she took the third place in the annual world best list.
In 1972, Christel Frese set a new achievement:
52.2 s, scored on May 20 in Bonn. However, this record no longer appears in the lists of the German Athletics Association, as the GDR athlete Helga Seidler had already run 400 meters in 52.2 s the previous year and the record lists of the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR were merged.
Christel Frese won her first run with 52.89 s and was then able to knock out Mexico's Olympic champion Colette Besson as fourth in the 53.01 s in the interlude. But then she suffered in the semifinals the injury pitch. However, to qualify for the final, she would have run under 52 seconds, as the fourth-placed, the eventual bronze medalistKathy Hammond, scored 51.92.
1969 Athens Bronze, Team: Czekay, Gleichfeld, Eckhoff, Frese. The set in the run on 19 September 1969 world record with 3: 33,9 min held only until the next day.
1971 Helsinki Silver, team: Rückes, Frese, Falck, Bödding
