General · EdgepediaOctober 21, 20262 min read

Kirsten Wenzel

Kirsten Wenzel (later Kirsten Strohbach; born 1961 in Leipzig) is a German rowing coxswain who steered the East German women's coxed four to Olympic gold at the 1980 Moscow Games. She competed at one Olympic Games and won one Olympic medal, a gold.¹

Key fact	Detail
Born	1961, Leipzig, Saxony¹
Role	Coxswain (Steuerfrau) in rowing, for East Germany (GDR)¹
Club	SC DHfK Leipzig; 150 cm / 48 kg¹
Olympic result	Gold, women's coxed four, 1980 Moscow, final time 3:19.27 on 26 July 1980¹
World medals	Gold 1978 (coxed four), silver 1979 and 1981 (coxed four), bronze 1982 and 1983 (eight)¹
Later life	Married swimmer Rainer Strohbach, later divorced; worked as a schoolteacher in Berlin¹

1980 Olympic gold

East Germany entered the women's coxed four at Moscow as a strong favorite, having won the event at the 1976 Olympics and at every World Championship except the most recent, where it finished second.² The Moscow crew was a changed lineup from the 1978 world champions: Ramona Kapheim, Silvia Fröhlich, Angelika Noack, Romy Saalfeld, and coxswain Wenzel.²

In the final on 26 July 1980 the East Germans won in 3:19.27, an Olympic record for the 1,000 m course, with Bulgaria second in 3:20.75 and the Soviet world champions third in 3:20.92.¹^•⁵ She was 19 years old at the victory.⁴

Later career, 1981 to 1983

In 1981 Wenzel coxed a new coxed four. Saalfeld, Sandig, Fröhlich, and Wenzel together with Sabine Portius won the East German title; at the World Championships in Munich-Oberschleissheim, Viola Kestler replaced Portius in the boat, and the East German crew took silver in 3:23.95, again behind the Soviet Union.³

Wenzel then moved to the coxed eight, steering the East German boat to bronze at the 1982 World Rowing Championships on the Rotsee in Lucerne in a final time of 3:02.89.³ She repeated the bronze medal with the eight at the 1983 World Championships, by which time she had married the swimmer Rainer Strohbach.¹

Personal life

Wenzel married Rainer Strohbach, an East German Olympic swimmer who won a silver medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay at the 1980 Olympics; the marriage later ended in divorce.¹^•⁶ By profession she was a schoolteacher in Berlin.¹

The event she won

The women's coxed four was an Olympic event only four times, from 1976 to 1988, before it was discontinued; East Germany won three of the four editions.⁷ Wenzel's 1980 gold therefore came in one of the shortest-lived boat classes on the Olympic program, and her 3:19.27 remained the event's last Olympic winning time at 1,000 m distance, since the 1984 and 1988 finals were rowed over a longer course.⁵

References

Initially written Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Oct 25, 2026