Robert Sens shows himself at German trials

The race not only saw intense competition as athletes strove to get to the top of the list of the elite team, but it also saw the return to elite rowing of Robert Sens.

Sens last rowed internationally four years ago and up until then he was a two-time Olympian and three-time World Champion. After spending some time coaching, Sens decided to stage a comeback in September this year. He called the comeback a risky project, “with which I don’t want to embarrass myself.” Sens is now a coach and a father so sees competitive rowing as his “hobby”. His wife Catriona, a former Australian Olympic rower, now coaches in Germany and is Sens’s coach.

Sens, 34, set the ball rolling for his competitive comeback by finishing seventh in the men’s pair rowing with under-23 representative Anton Braun.  The men’s pair was won by Kristof Wilke and Richard Schmidt. Lukas Mueller and Maximilian Reinelt were second while Rene Bertram and Florian Eichner finished third.

Sens told his local Mainz newspaper, “In the past I was a professional athlete, three times training per day, plus physio. I was crazy, you rather had to stop me than push me. Today I certainly don’t have the time for that anymore. I train definitely less, but much more intensively.”

The fascination with seeing what is still possible motivates Sens to continue training. “Every week I’m breaking actual PBs, every week I’m moving the boundaries again.”

After finishing seventh at the trials, Sens received positive comments from head coach Harmut Buschbacher and Sens stated, “We (with Braun) will continue. At the moment we are not a world class pair, but we still have lots of potential to improve. We haven’t maxed out our capacities. For November we’ve met our goal. The goal was to get into the top ten, with not more than 30 seconds behind the top boats.”

Marcel Hacker was back at the top of the men’s single finishing ahead of Phillip Wende and Stephan Krueger, with Karsten Brodowski in fourth.

The trials also had racing in the women’s pair. Representatives in the pair for 2011, Kerstin Hartmann and Marlene Sinning, finished first followed by an up-and-coming field featuring Nadja Drygalla and Ulrike Sennewald, with Julia Lepke and Anne-Sophie Agarius in third.

In the women’s single the 2011 representative in the single, Annekatrin Thiele, finished in sixth at the trial, with the top spots going Britta Oppelt (first), Carina Baer (second), Stephanie Schiller (third) and Peggy Waleska (fourth).

The lightweight women’s single had Anja Noske finish first ahead of Marie-Louise Draeger with Sina Burmeister in third. On the men’s side, Michael Wieler (from the lightweight men’s quadruple sculls world silver medal crew) was first, followed by Daniel Lawitzke with Jonathan Koch in third.

The lightweight men’s pair had this year’s bronze medallists (from the pair) Bastian Seibt and Lars Wichert in first, followed by members of the lightweight men’s four, Matthias and Jost Schoemann-Finck in second and brothers Jochen and Martin Kuehner in third.

For full results go to: http://langstrecke.rchd1898.de/index.php?&id=656