Liese Prokop, Austria's first female interior minister and a former Olympic medalist in the pentathlon, has died, the government said yesterday. She was 65.
Prokop, who was appointed in 2004 to oversee Austria's police and overall security, died on Sunday night of a ruptured aorta, the Interior Ministry said. She died while being rushed to a hospital in St Poelten, about 80km west of Vienna, after complaining of chest pains and collapsing.
Prokop, who placed second in the pentathlon at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, broke the world record in the event the following year and set a national record in the shot put that stood until 1999. The women's pentathlon was replaced by the heptathlon in the Olympic program in 1984.
She spent 23 years in regional politics before joining Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's Cabinet. Prior to taking over the Interior Ministry, she was deputy governor of Lower Austria province, the most populous state in the Alpine nation of 8 million.
Schuessel said in a statement that Prokop's sudden death had shocked everyone. He called her "an extraordinary woman with a remarkable life as both a world-class athlete and a magnificent politician."
"Her large heart failed yesterday," Schuessel added.
Born on March 27, 1941, in Vienna, Prokop began her political career in 1969 as a delegate to the regional assembly of Lower Austria province.
A member of Schuessel's center-right Austrian People's Party, she won admiration for her ability to listen to and connect with ordinary citizens while pressing for a crackdown on street crime.
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