Germany breaks the cold for team testing

Day one consisted of 2000m tests on the indoor rowing machine followed by a 6000m on-the-water small boat time trial on Leipzig’s canal.

“We were lucky that the water tests could take place,” said German Rowing’s press officer, Georg Gruetzner. “On some very quiet corners of the canal in Leipzig there was still ice on the water.”

Fog caused delays at the start of the time trial but when racing commenced Gruetzner described the water as excellent with no wind. “During the day the sun came out for the first day of sunshine in 2013!”

Kerstin Hartmann and Marlene Sinnig have been Germany’s top women’s pair for four years now and they remained at the top by winning the pair by eight seconds over Julia Lepke and Kathrin Marchand with Ulrike Sennewald and Nadja Drygalla in third. All of these athletes raced at the London Olympics with Hartmann and Sinnig finishing sixth in the pair while Lepke, Marchand, Sennewald and Drygalla were in the women’s eight.

Annekatrin Thiele, for another year, proved to be the fastest of the female single scullers. Thiele finished 15 seconds ahead of Carina Baer and Britta Oppelt who were second equal with Julia Richter ending just one second back in fourth. These four scullers made up the women’s quadruple sculls that took silver at the London Olympic Games.  

The men’s single sculls was won by London Olympian from the men’s double sculls, Stephan Krueger. Krueger was one second ahead of Marcel Hacker. Hacker raced in the single at London where he finished sixth. Krueger’s Olympic partner, Eric Knittel was in a dead heat for third with Olympic Champion from the men’s quad, Lauritz Schoof.

Winner of the lightweight men’s single sculls, Lars Hartig was just three seconds slower than open men’s winner, Krueger. Second behind Hartig was 19-year-old Jason Osborne followed by Jonathan Koch. Jost Schoemann-Finck, who has just returned to Germany after training and racing in Australia, finished fifth.

Topping the men’s pair was Philipp Naruhn and Andre Sieber. They were five seconds ahead of Olympic Champions from the men’s eight, Richard Schmidt and Eric Johannesen. In third Maximilian Reinelt and Kristof Wilke were also part of the London Olympics men’s eight.

Overall the lightweight women’s single sculls race was tight with only 11 seconds separating the top six scullers and just four seconds between the top thee scullers of Wiebke Hein, Anja Noske and Lena Mueller. Noske and Mueller raced in the final of the lightweight women’s double sculls at the London Olympics.

The 2000m indoor rowing testing used Concept2 rowing machines but were analysed further through the help of the Institute for Research and Development of Sports (FES) for ‘finer’ results. This meant that results were not published due to the potential confusion in analysis.

Chairman of the German Rowing Federation, Siegfried Kadel commented that the results of these trials were comparable to the early season testing of previous years.

The next important race for those hoping to make the German national team is the International Wedau Regatta and German Small Boat Championships in Duisburg next week. This will be over 2000m.

For full results go to: http://www.rudern.de/