Claudia Massari

West German figure skater Claudia Massari finished 13th, partnering with Leonardo Azzola, in pairs at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics. Both also competed at the 1983 and 1984 World Championships with less success. At the 1983 Europeans the pair placed seventh and one year later eighth. In both years they also won the West German nationals. They then separated and Massari partnered with non-Olympian Daniele Capraco both at the 1985 Europeans (sixth) and the Worlds (tenth). They also won the West German national title that year.

Massari was born to an Italian father and a German mother. Due to a persistently inflamed ankle bursa, Massari retired after the 1985 season. She then started a modelling career and worked with German broadcasting companies and the newspaper Bild. Massari then moved to St. Vincent and worked in a hotel. After a falling out with the German hotel manager, she returned to Germany.

Massari had a baby and lived on social welfare and slowly became what people called whimsical. She had more and more conflicts with the child’s father, and at the end of 2001, a district court removed parental responsibility for her son and transferred it to the youth welfare office. She then took her son and travelled to numerous countries throughout the world.

According to German law, child abduction is imprisoned for up to five years. The Federal Prosecutor General initiated proceedings for child abduction under the international Hague Convention and Interpol was looking for Massari. She was finally found at Scheveningen in the Netherlands, together with her son, who was then returned to a Bavarian children’s home. Massari never recovered parental responsibility for her son.