Norbert Haupert

Norbert Haupert was a Luxembourg middle distance runner, sports administrator and Christian Social People's Party politician. He ran for Luxembourg at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, was twice voted Luxembourg Sportsman of the Year, led both the national athletics federation and the Luxembourg Olympic committee, and sat in the Chamber of Deputies from 1999 to 2013. He died on 27 October 2026, aged 86.

He was born on 2 April 1940 in Schifflange, in the south of Luxembourg. In the early 1960s he dominated Luxembourg middle distance running, winning the national 800 metres title in 1961, 1962, 1963, 1966 and 1967 and twice completing the 800 and 1500 metres double at the national championships. He competed at the Rome Olympics in 1960, and in 1963 won bronze in the 800 metres at the Summer Universiade in Porto Alegre. In 1962 and 1963 he became the first track and field athlete to be named Luxembourg Sportsman of the Year.

Away from the track he built a career in education and public administration. He was director of the Lycée technique d'Esch-sur-Alzette from 1987 to 1989 and later administrator general at the Ministry of the Middle Classes and Tourism. In sport he followed Josy Barthel as president of the Luxembourg Athletics Federation from 1973 to 1979, and from 1989 to 1999 he was president of the Luxembourg Olympic and Sporting Committee, the COSL. He stepped down in 1999 to enter politics.

Elected for the CSV in the Sud constituency, he served in the Chamber of Deputies from August 1999 to October 2013. RTL singled out 2008, when he was rapporteur for the 2009 state budget, as the high point of his parliamentary career. From 1999 he also sat on the communal council of Mondercange, where he lived and was known as an approachable local representative. In 2018 Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich appointed him the first president of the Kierchefong, the new fund managing the property of the Catholic Church in Luxembourg. He was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

His death on 27 October 2026 was reported the same day by RTL, which described him as a figure of Luxembourg sport and politics. No cause of death was made public.