Günter Haritz

Günter Haritz (16 October 1948 – 29 October 2025) was a road and track cyclist from West Germany who won the gold medal in the Men's 4.000 Team Pursuit at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich alongside Günther Schumacher, Jürgen Colombo and Udo Hempel. In 1973, together with Peter Vonhof, Hans Lutz and Günther Schumacher, Haritz won the amateur world title in the team pursuit.

Career Haritz was a professional cyclist from 1973 to 1982, winning the national road championship in 1974 and coming second and third in 1975 and 1976 respectively and third again in 1979. The chief part of his professional career concerned racing on the track. Haritz rode 83 six-day races, winning 11 of them from 1975 to 1977 during which time he was in the top 5 riders in the He won seven Sixes races with René Pijnen, two with Dietrich Thurau (both of whom were his then teammates with TI–Raleigh), one with Patrick Sercu (the 1975 Six Days of Zürich) and one, in Grenoble, with the Frenchman Bernard Thévenet.

In the 1976 Grenoble Six, track specialist Haritz and 'road cyclist' Thévenet, who then had won the 1975 Tour de France and the 1975 and 1976 editions of the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, claimed the victory against famous road cyclist Francesco Moser, who, like Thévenet, was coupled with an (eminent) track specialist, Pijnen (2nd), as well as beating the equally famous road rider Felice Gimondi who was also with coupled an eminent track specialist, Patrick Sercu (3rd), and notably then road champion Joop Zoetemelk (10th) and future five times Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault (12th and last).

Corroborating his performances in the Six-Day races in these years, he won the 1975 edition of the European championship Derny racing and in 1976 with Pijnen the European Madison championship in Zurich, beating the Australians Danny Clark and Donald Allan (2nd) and Sercu and Klaus Bugdahl (3rd). In 1977, in Copenhagen with Wilfried Peffgen, he took the bronze medal in the European Madison championship won by the Belgians Patrick Sercu and Eddy Merckx.

At the 1976 Vuelta a España, Haritz tested positive for doping and left the race after the B-test also was positive.

Death Haritz died from cancer on 29 October 2025 at the age of 77.