Günther HEIDEMANN

Welterweight boxer Günther Heidemann from Berlin won a bronze medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games, after losing his semi-final against Poland’s Zygmunt Chychła on a narrow 2-1 decision. Heidemann qualified for the Olympics by winning the German national team in Olympic year. He lost to Chychła again in the quarter-finals at the 1953 European Championships. He won his second national title in 1955 and at the Europeans that year lost his second round bout to the eventual champion Nicky Gargano from Great Britain.

Heidemann, a trained bricklayer, later coached talented youths at his home club. The 1952 Olympic bronze medals were not awarded until 1971, when the Finnish Boxing Federation decided to hold the medal ceremonies for the 1952 boxing bronze medal winners. Initially the AIBA only wanted to award gold and silver medals. All 20 losing semi-finalists were invited to a ceremony in Helsinki but only six were able to appear, four of them were the losing Finnish semi-finalists, along with Heidemann and Boris Nikolov of Bulgaria.