Jan Hoffmann

Jan Hoffmann (* 26 October 1955 in Dresden) is a German figure skater, two-time World Champion and silver medallist at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Biography

Jan Hoffmann's first coach was Annemarie Halbach in Dresden. He changed later to coach Jutta Müller in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today Chemnitz). He represented the former East Germany in competition.

In 1974, Hoffmann won the World and European Championships for the first time. After that he had a surgery of his meniscus, which slowed down his career and caused him to miss the entire 1975 season. He won his second World Championshiptitle in 1980 at the end of his skating career.

Hoffmann competed at 4 Olympic Games. At the 1968 Winter Olympics he was just 12 years old. At the 1972 Games he finished 6th, at the 1976 Winter Olympics he was 4th, and he won the silver medal in 1980. At these Olympics Robin Cousins (GBR) won gold and Charles Tickner (USA) won bronze. Jan Hoffman also won the European Championship four times.

Hoffmann studied medicine after his figure skating career and is today an orthopaedic specialist. He is still active in figure skating as a judge and was also a member of the managing board of the Deutsche Eislauf-Union (German Figure skating Union).

In spite of his other achievements in skating, in the United States Hoffmann is unfortunately probably best known as the judge singled out by CBS television as being responsible for Oksana Baiul winning over Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 Winter Olympics, allegedly owing to his common Eastern bloc background with the Ukrainian Baiul. In fact, there were four other judges who also placed Baiul first, and the decision required a majority of the panel. CBS figure skating commentator Scott Hamilton strongly objected to this attempt to paint Hoffmann's judging as biased and politically motivated, but was overruled by the event producers. Four years later, Hoffman also judged the ladies competition at the 1998 Winter Olympics and gave his first-place ordinal to Michelle Kwan.

Jan Hoffmann is married and has one daughter.

Competitive highlights

ee also

* World Figure Skating Championships

References

* Scott Hamilton, "Landing It". ISBN 1-57566-466-6.

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Persondata
NAME=Hoffmann, Jan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=German figure skater
DATE OF BIRTH=October 26 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH=Dresden, Saxony, Germany
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=