East German figure skater Katarina Witt’s enormously successful career included gold-medal performances at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, turning her into an ambassador for her country and a worldwide media star. Backed by a regime that saw sport as a form of soft politics, Witt and her coach consciously cultivated her fame by increasing the sexual tension of her performances. Timm provides cultural context for the resulting collision between politics, sex, and sport. While certainly not a dupe of her handlers, relaxed East German attitudes toward nudity likely left Witt unable to appreciate how her image intertwined with popular culture images of the Cold War “honey pot.”