Where are they now? Annekatrin Thiele

Early in her career Annekatrin Thiele’s rowing ambition struck a hurdle. At 173cm tall, she was not always recognised as the optimal height for rowing. It was selection time for the 2002 German junior national team and Thiele missed being nominated.

The teenage Thiele refused to give up. “My family and my trainer encouraged me. I wanted to show those who didn’t believe I could do it.”

Two years later Thiele was selected for the German under-23 team and won her first international medal – a silver in the double sculls. She went on to compete at four Olympic Games – from Beijing through to Tokyo – picking up a gold and two silver medals.

Her first medal, at the Beijing Olympics, was one of the most spectacular when she and her doubles partner Christiane Huth led for 1900 metres, getting pipped at the finish line by New Zealand’s Evers-Swindell twins by just 0.01 of a second.

Throughout her career Thiele focused solely on sculling after her coach said she was too short for sweep rowing. She moved between the double and the quad with some bouts in the single. For the season of 2017 Thiele competed solely in the single picking up a bronze at the European Rowing Championships.

Thiele’s rowing started at the age of nine taking her first strokes in the Unstrut in Rossleben (Thuringia). She then moved to Leipzig to be part of the national team. After training to be a police officer Thiele became a full-time rower as her job allowed her to concentrate fully on the sport. Thiele says this helped her to remain in the sport for so long and, she adds, also because she was hardly ever injured.

“As a police officer my job was to train and represent Germany. During training breaks I would work as a police officer for four weeks.”

After 17 years of competing internationally – with no break – Thiele retired. She was preparing for what was to be her fourth Olympics, Tokyo and everything was a bit off kilter. The Pandemic meant the Games had been delayed by a year and her athletic performance over the 2019/2020 season had not been optimal. On the positive side she says at least it meant and extra year for preparation.

“After Tokyo I needed time to think about my future. I noticed that I no longer had the desire in my heart to face the hard training every day. I decided to end my career.”

Rowing had dominated Thiele’s life and she says it was difficult to let it go. But she found it easy to organise her day without a training plan and enjoyed spending time with family and friends and just doing nothing, just reading, listening to podcasts and watching TV.

For over two years now she’s been working full-time as a control and patrol officer in her adopted town, Leipzig. She stays involved in rowing at her local club as the sports director, keeping up with “what the youngsters are doing”. She follows rowing competitions “from the couch” and readily makes “clever comments. Unfortunately my companions are gradually giving up. So the familiar faces are becoming fewer.”

And life lessons from rowing?

“I learnt that you can learn a lot from defeat. I learnt about teamwork and the respectful treatment of one another.”