Wedau Regatta tests German team hopefuls

This regatta is required attendance for all top-level athletes attempting to make the senior and junior national team and racing is done in either pairs or singles. This year there were about 600 athletes racing, which is a comparative number to other years.

On the second of the three days of racing conditions were tough for the competitors with strong winds and lanes being reallocated, but for the day of finals there was very little wind and sunny, warm conditions.

For national team selection this regatta followed on from the 6,000m racing and erg testing two weeks prior in Leipzig. National team coach, Marcus Schwarzrock and coach Ralf Holtmeyer will use these results to help select crews for the European Rowing Championships which will be held at the end of May in Seville, Spain.

Nearly all of the 2012 Olympians raced at Wedau Regatta and Schwarzrock commented on the line ups saying, “Yes, there were some changes especially in the pairs, caused by the dual strategy of rowing and studying.” But Schwarzrock added that he expected a very strong and concentrated team from 2015 onwards.

As at the Leipzig trials, the lightweight men’s single sculls was won by Lars Hartig with Jason Osborne coming in second. The only change in the order of the top three was Konstantin Steinhuebel coming in at third. Steinhuebel has three under-23 World Championship medals including a silver in the lightweight single.

Marcel Hacker was back on top in the men’s single sculls after finishing second to Stephan Krueger in Leipzig. Krueger, meanwhile, finished fifth with Karl Schulz coming in second and Lauritz Schoof in third. Hacker was named “Meister von Deutschland,” for his single sculls win and later announced that he would be continuing on to the Rio Olympic Games.

In the women’s single sculls Annekatrin Thiele remained in her winning ways beating Carina Baer to the line, albeit only by 0.19 seconds. This order mirrors the Leipzig trials for first and second with Julia Richter stepping up into third.

Germany’s Olympic men’s pair, Anton Braun and Felix Drahotta, finished first in the pair ahead of Andre Sieber and Philipp Naruhn. Braun and Drahotta were placed nineth in Leipzig where Seiber and Naruhn were the winners. Richard Schmidt and Eric Johannesen were third.

It was a comfortable win for Marlene Sinnig and Kerstin Hartmann in the women’s pair. The duo finished an easy six seconds ahead of second-placed Kathrin Marchand and Julia Lepke with Ronja Schuette and Lisa Kemmerer in third.

The lightweight men’s pair went to Lars Wichert and Yannic Lorinth while the lightweight women’s single sculls was won by Lena Mueller.

The event was streamed live on the German Rowing website, www.rudern.de. German Rowing’s press officer Georg Gruetzner noted that the website has become one of the most successful sport homepages in Germany with about 160,000 users per month.  

For full results click here.