Quick Facts
Biography
Rosemarie Gabriel (née Kother on 27 February 1956) is a retired German swimmer. She competed at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics in five events in total and won a gold medal in the 4 × 100 m medley relay in 1976, swimming for the East German team in a preliminary round. Individually, she won a bronze medal in the 200 m butterfly in 1976.
Between 1973 and 1975 she won seven gold and two silver medals in the 100 m and 200 m butterfly and 4 × 100 m medley relay at the world and European championships. She also set eleven world records:
three in the 100 m butterfly (1974),
five in the 200 m butterfly (1973, 1976),
two in the 4 × 100 m medley relay (1973, 1974) and
one in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay (1976).
In 1986, she was inducted to the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
She retired from competitions in 1976 and studied physiotherapy. In 1990 she founded her own company Praxis Gabriel in Berlin, which in 2000 was joined by her daughter Linda (born ca. 1981).
She was probably using performance enhancing drugs as part of the large scale doping program set up by the Stasi in East Germany