Renate Stecher (, ; née Renate Meißner; born 12 May 1950) is a German (former East German) sprint runner and a triple Olympic champion. She held 34 world records and was the first woman to run 100 metres within 11 seconds.
Biography
Born as Renate Meißner, she was a very talented athlete, also competing in the high jump and pentathlon. She debuted internationally at the 1969 European Championships, where she – as a last minute substitute – won a silver medal in the 200 m and a gold in the 4 × 100 m relay. However, after the killing of 11 Israeli athletes in the Munich Massacre, and the Olympics not being cancelled, van den Berg withdrew from the competition in sympathy with the Israeli victims. She said that she was leaving in protest of the "obscene" decision to continue with the Olympic Games.
In Rome at the 1974 European Championships she was defeated in both the 100 m and 200 m, by Irena Szewińska of Poland and had to settle for silver in both distances. However the GDR 4 × 100 m relay team, in which Stecher ran the second leg, won the gold medal in a world record time. Raelene Boyle, who had finished second to Stecher in both the 100 and 200 metres at the Olympics, stated that she felt cheated, as she believed it unlikely that Stecher would have beaten her without the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
In 2011 Stecher was inducted into the Germany's Sports Hall of Fame.