Annett Wittig

by Hans- October 2003
Photography by James Cook

Annett Wittig was eight years-old when she was picked out to become one of the German Democratic Republic's "wonder girls". She had just long jumped over five meters at a track meet near her parents' home in Neubrandenburg, just outside Berlin, when she was approached by a trainer who invited her to
come for a tryout at an elite sports school nearby. For the next eight years Annett attended the school, which aimed to produce the next generation of world-beating Olympic athletes for East Germany. "We just trained, trained, trained," she says.

25 years later, Annett is now part of another elite. In August, she made her debut as a pro bodybuilder in the Jan Tana Classic in Charlotte, N.C. At 5-foot-9 and 169 pounds, the 33 year-old cut a striking figure with a sleek, hard, feminine physique with spectacular legs and glutes.

The awesome physique Annett displayed onstage at the Jan Tana was the product of ten years training as a bodybuilder. But she says the basis for it was her years of athletic training as a little girl in East Germany. Although it was tough, it not only gave her a perfect physical foundation for bodybuilding but also instilled in her a drive and discipline which would help her through the ups and downs of training and dieting years later. "They really drilled it into us that you don't give up," she says. "That was pretty cool. It applies to every part of your life. It becomes part of you."

As a teenage athlete, Annett had a body that she describes as "wiry" -- thin but muscular and defined. Of course, in communist East Germany, bodybuilding was unheard of. But from their early teens Annett and the other young athletes -- male and female -- had been regularly lifting weights during the winter to improve their strength. "I had no idea about bodybuilding," she says. "I was in the weight room too -- I had to do squats, because you need quads to run fast -- but I didn't know it was bodybuilding. Later when I started bodybuilding I realized I had already done all the exercises as a child."

Annett left the East German athletic program when she was 16 and moved to Berlin. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and opened up the West to the citizens of East Germany. In the meantime, having quit athletics, Annett had got out of shape, and a few years later her doctor encouraged her to join a gym to
improve her cardiovascular fitness. "I didn't want to put on muscle, I just wanted to get healthy," she says.

Annett was amazed by the results when she started experimenting with weights again. "As soon as I started bodybuilding the memory effect kicked in, and I put on muscle much more quickly than a person starting from zero," she says. "It happened really quickly." As she watched her body change, she began to
see bodybuilding as an opportunity to be a competitive athlete again. "It was like a second chance," she says. She started "training like crazy" and a year later did her first show.

Over the next ten years, Annett gradually worked her way up the competitive ladder in Germany. She won the German championships in 2000 and three times made the top five the IFBB World Championships, placing third in Alicante, Spain, in 1998. She finally received her pro card in 2002.

Believe it or not, she had no plans to make her pro debut at the Jan Tana until a week before the show. "I decided I had to go," she says. "I didn't know why, but I had to." Luckily, she was already in near-contest shape. "I always stay in pretty good condition in the off-season," she says. "I have veins, abs and cuts in my legs. I can eat what I want and I don't get fat." Then, on the flight to the US, some of her luggage got lost, including her Pro Tan. "So many things went wrong," she laughs. "I was running amok most of the time."

Annett was holding water the day of the show and placed sixth in the heavyweight class. But she says that despite the placings, competing in the show -- her first in America -- was a wonderful experience. "I was thrilled to be there," she says. "The people were all so nice -- the judges, the audience, the photographers, everyone was so cool. I felt totally at home." There was also another reason why she enjoyed the Jan Tana so much: while she was there she met a man who she says she has fallen "madly in love" with. She now believes that's the real reason she felt she had to compete in the show.

For the moment, Annett still lives in Berlin where she works as a real estate agent. Right now, she is not sure when she'll be onstage again. But she definitely wants to continue to compete in bodybuilding. Although she says it's the toughest sport she has ever competed in, training and dieting has become part of who she is just as the discipline she learned as a teenage athlete did. "It's just my life," she says.

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