German sprint racing brings out national team members

The German Championships saw heats on Friday with finals on Saturday while the 350m sprints had heats on Saturday and finals on Sunday. A number of rowers competed in both regattas with national team rowers using it as a chance to race with their friends and club members.

Olympian Jason Osborne teamed up with Cedric Kulbach to win the men’s double sculls. The duo then joined with Benedikt Mueller and Timo Piontek in the men’s quadruple sculls which they won in dominating fashion. Both these races were over the 1000m distance. Piontek later won the men’s single sculls over the 350m distance.

The men’s coxed four over 350m was incredibly tight with 2012 Olympian Toni Seifert being joined by 2016 Olympic silver medallist Felix Drahotta, 2004 Olympian Stephan Volkert and former junior champion Felix Krane. Coxed by Philipp Kappek, the crew won by two seconds over the rest of the field that finished within half a second of each other.

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Drahotta then joined with Seifert to win the men’s pair over 350m.

In the women’s quadruple sculls 350m sprint 2016 Olympian Mareike Adams raced with Carolin Roose, Jania Hanssen and Charlotte Hentrich. They won by just half a second.  Lisa Schmidla, who became the Olympic Champion at Rio in the women’s quadruple sculls, raced in the mixed quadruple sculls over 350m and finished second by 0.13 of a second.

For German national team members, training starts this month with the first long distance regatta (6km) coming up in November as well as 2000m erg testing.

Krefeld will be the venue of the 2017 European Rowing Junior Championships to be held in 20-21 May 2017.