Lina Radke

Karoline Lina Radke-Batschauer, born Batschauer on 18 October 1903 and died on 14 February 1983, was a German track and field athlete and the first Olympic champion in the 800 m for women. She began competing at the age of 20, at a time when running was widely considered too exhausting for women. She set her first 800 m world record in 1927 while living in Breslau with her husband Georg, who was her coach. At the 1928 Summer Olympics she won the inaugural women's 800 m title, earning the first German gold medal in athletics, and set the first officially recognised world record in the event, 2:16.8, which lasted until 1944. After false reports of collapsing competitors the IOC dropped the women's 800 m from the Games until 1960. She set a 1000 m world record in 1930 and retired in 1934, later working as an athletics coach.