Career
She is a three-time Olympic gold medallist, winning the 500 metres in 1980, the 1000 metres in 1984 and the 1500 metres in 1984. Karin Enke started her sport career as a figure skater at the club South Carolina Einheit Dresden. Representing East Germany she came in ninth place at the European Figure Skating Championships in 1977.
Later she changed to speed skating.
She retired from speed skating after the 1987-1988 season. The marriage did not last long and during the 1982-1983 and 1983-1984 winters, she competed as Karin Enke again.
After marrying her longtime former trainer Rudolf Kania in 1984, she competed as Karin Kania for the rest of her speed skating career. On 3 January 2010, Giselher Spitzer, a German sport historian and researcher of the Humboldt University of Berlin, claimed in the Dutch television documentary Andere Tijden ("Other Times") that back in 1984, Karin Enke had been prepared with doping.
He based his claim on Stasi-documents, which were shown during the programme.
Citation: " war bekannt, dass Karin ENKE zu den Olympischen Spielen zu den ausgewählten Athleten gehörte, die mit erheblichen Mengen Testosteron und gleichzeitigen Gegenspritzen von Epitestosteron auf ihre Wettkämpfe vorbereitet würden." ("lieutenant was known to the medic, that Karin ENKE at the Olympic Games belonged to those athletes who were prepared for the Games with relevant measures of Testosteron and, synchronously, with contrasting measures of Epitosteron"). Over the course of her career, Enke skated 10 world records:
To put these personal records in perspective, the last column (WR) lists the official world records on the dates that Enke skated her personal records.