Klaus Ampler

Klaus Ampler (1940 to 2016) was an East German road cyclist who rose through the sports club SC DHfK Leipzig. He won the Peace Race, the amateur stage race of the Eastern Bloc, in 1963, and took the DDR Rundfahrt, the East German national tour, in 1962 and 1963. At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City he rode for East Germany in the 100 kilometre team time trial, where the squad finished thirteenth after a tyre defect hurt one teammate early in the race. He retired from racing in 1970, went on to coach the East German road squad, and trained his son Uwe Ampler, who became an Olympic champion in 1988 and a professional rider. Klaus Ampler wrote an autobiography titled Schweiss in 2005 and died in a nursing home in Leipzig in 2016, aged 75.