Frank Luck

German biathlete

Frank Luck (born 5 December 1967) is a former German and, before 1990, East German biathlete.

Luck started early with cross country skiing, but in 1980 he went over to biathlon. By 1988 at the age of 21 he had already qualified for the Winter Olympics in Calgary, where he finished sixth in the sprint event. His big breakthrough came with the 10 km sprint world title in 1989. Having originally competed for the East German team, by 1991, Germany had unified and Luck was now competing for the combined Germany team. Because of illness he missed the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, but at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer he won the gold medal with the German relay team which he repeated four years later at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. During his seventeen year career, Luck won eleven world championship gold medal with the last one in the relay in 2004 at Oberhof where he retired as a biathlete after this event. With five silver and three bronze medals he is one of the most successful world championship competitors of all time. Luck also won three times at the Holmenkollen ski festival biathlon competition with two wins in the pursuit (1999, 2000) and one win in the sprint (2002). He is the Brother in law to his one time teammate Sven Fischer.

In April 2009, Luck, on the German TV show Sport Inside (WDR), acknowledged having unwittingly been given the anabolic steroid Oral Turinabol by his trainer in the 1980s.

All results are sourced from the International Biathlon Union.