Olympic star gets justice for wife

Steiner won gold for Germany in August. Foto: apa

By By David Rogers

German sentenced for running over Mattias Steiner's wife.
Weight-lifter distraught over death.

Heidelberg. The man who ran into and killed the German wife of Austrian-born Olympic weight-lifter Matthias Steiner last year received a 10-month sus- pended sentence from a German judge yesterday.

The court in Heidelberg, central Germany, ruled the 57-year-old guilty of neglig- ent homicide.

The man’s car hit Susann Steiner head-on in July 2007 on a road near Heidelberg, killing her on the spot. The accused said shortly before sentencing that he very much regretted what had happened.

Steiner became famous by winning a gold medal for his adopted country Ger- many at the Beijing Summer Olympics this year, and touched viewers when he held up a picture of his deceased wife for the cameras as he accepted his medal. Steiner, who suffers from diabetes, lifted a total of 461 kilograms in the men’s super-heavy-weight category, clinching the win in Beijing with a ‘clean and jerk’ of 258kgs.

Steiner decided to leave Austria and move across the border to live with his German wife as a result of an argument with the Austrian weight-lifters’ union over his decision to employ a personal coach instead of working with the Austrian team.

But it was not until after his wife died last year that the 25-year-old received German citizenship, which he acquired in January this year, just in time for the Beijing Olympics.

Steiner received a Ger- man TV award for his reaction on winning gold for Germany.

Printausgabe vom 04.12.2008