Wolfgang Behrendt, First East German Olympic Boxing Gold Medalist, Dies at 90

Wolfgang Behrendt, the first athlete from the German Democratic Republic to win an Olympic gold medal, died on 22 June 2026 at the age of 90. At 20 years old he defeated South Korea's Song Soon Chon in the bantam‑weight final at the 1956 Melbourne Games, securing the DDR’s inaugural Olympic boxing title.

After retiring from competition he served for many years on the DDR boxing federation board and worked as a sports photographer for the newspaper Neues Deutschland. He later lived in Berlin, avoiding personal contacts in his final years. Behrendt suffered several family losses: his wife Monika died in 2016, his son Mario – also a boxer and 1980 Olympian – passed in 2022, and his younger son Heiko died in March 2023. Former Olympic champion Henry Maske said, “Wolfgang Behrendt was a very reserved, open‑minded and pleasant person and a very good boxer.”