Heike John

Heike John
Personal information
Born (1960-06-19) 19 June 1960 (age 64)
Düsseldorf, West Germany
Height1.76 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight67 kg (148 lb)
Sport
SportSwimming
ClubWasserfreunde Weisweiler, Eschweiler
Medal record
Women's swimming
Representing  West Germany
European Championships
Bronze medal – third place 1977 Jönköping 4×100 m medley

Heike John (now Heike Walpot; born 19 June 1960) is a German retired swimmer and former astronaut candidate.

She won a bronze medal at the 1977 European Aquatics Championships.[1] She competed at the 1976 Summer Olympics in the 100 m and 200 m backstroke events but did not reach the finals.[2] During her career she won five national titles in the 100 m (1977) and 200 m (1977, 1978) backstroke and 200 m medley (1977, 1978).[3] She missed the 1980 Summer Olympics because of their boycott by West Germany.

After her swimming career, she studied medicine at RWTH Aachen and earned a doctorate in 1987. In the same year she was selected as one of five West German astronaut candidates for the Spacelab D-2 mission, along with Hans Schlegel, Ulrich Walter, Gerhard Thiele and Renate Brümmer. She served as Cap com during the D-2 mission in 1993, but was never assigned to a spaceflight herself. After retiring as an astronaut, she became a professional pilot for Lufthansa in 1996 and retired as a Senior First Officer in the Boeing 747 fleet in the mid 2010s. She is married to astronaut Hans Schlegel.[4]

References

  1. ^ Heike JOHN. les-sports.info
  2. ^ Heike John Archived 18 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine. sports-reference.com
  3. ^ Schwimmen - Deutsche Meisterschaften (Damen) Teil 2 Teil 3. sport-komplett.de
  4. ^ Simon, Rolf-Michael (14 February 2008). "Die Frau des Astronauten" (in German). NRZ. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
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