Bonnie Twitty
aWhen it was all over, the asterisks appeared. Sculler Alexandra Föster was so exhausted that she couldn’t take part in the award ceremony. She missed something: The 20-year-old athlete from Mesched could have been celebrated for her one-shot flip in the World Cup race at the Rütsee in Lucerne. “It took me a moment to get back in shape again,” the rower later explained. “I didn’t take it easy and gave it my all.” Just as it should be for a rower. The gold medal was later handed over.
In a great final, in which she started just 250m from the end of the 2,000m, she withstood surprise candidates Tara Rigney of Australia and Jenin Jamlin of Switzerland in fourth place. Her plan to not completely exhaust herself in the semifinals worked. In this preliminary race, Föster finished second behind Australian Rigney, but that was enough to reach the final. “Maybe I can save the pills I still need tomorrow,” she speculated on Saturday. categorized correctly.
Little in the tank
Almost the entire world of rowing regrouped after the Olympic Games in Tokyo. At the Rotsee, the weekend spotting was announced. For the eight Germany, who changed six places compared to the Olympic silver crew in Tokyo, the test turned out to be a mixed one: the newly formed eight from England moved forward.
Rowers from Dortmund’s performance center were also unable to break the big Australian boat. But at least they were able to put this team under pressure for so long before they were exhausted, they got to third place. The difference between the winners was 5.34 seconds. “In the end we didn’t have much left in the tank,” helmsman Jonas Wiesen said. “But it’s good that we got to the podium.
Weber surprised
Overall, things did not go as hoped this weekend. “Three weeks ago in the opening match of the World Cup in Poznan, they still won the final, although the stadium was weaker. It turns out that the road to the 2024 Olympics in Paris still lies ahead of the eight young Germany around batsman Matisse Schönherr (with Wolff Niklas Schroeder, Turpin Johanssen, Benedict Egling, Laureate Vollert, Julian Garth, Jasper Engel and Olaf Rogensack). So far, the to-do list is long.
In the men’s singles, Mark Webber of Marburg took third place, but ten seconds behind winner Graeme Thomas of Great Britain. The 24-year-old Webber, who started out in double rowing at the Olympics, was quite surprised. “I wouldn’t have thought I had come here so naive,” he said. He struggled a bit with his slow start – and that’s usually his strength.
“I would never have thought of that,” Mark Webber says after his race.
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Photo: dpa
He explained, “I have to improve the rowing in the singles, but I am very satisfied with the performance today.” Weber took first place in Germany, world champion Oliver Zeidler – he had to recover from a cold. The coach, Brigitte Peleg, explained that with regard to the European Championships from August 11 to 14 in Munich – Oberschleissheim, they do not want to take any risks. For others, the World Cup in Lucerne was also the last test of endurance before the European Championships on home soil in the 1972 Olympics.
Seven German boats have reached the Lucerne finals in 14 Olympic classes, and the overall balance looks rather realistic with three places on the podium. The four coxless team, the smaller branch of the belt group in Dortmund, has shown at least an upward trend. No German boat has been able to qualify for Tokyo in this category, but that should be different for 2024.
In Lucerne, the quartet with hitter Mark Kamann (Hamburg), Max John (Rostock), Malt Grossmann (Hamburg) and Tess Hagemeister (Dortmund) finished fourth. Women’s double paddlers with Frauk Höndling (Hanover) and Pia Greten (Osnabrück) finished fifth, as did the women’s eight with Katja Fuhrmann (Dresden). The women’s quartet, the trump card of German rowers for many years, took sixth place. Brigitte Peleg explained: “We’re in turmoil, and we have a lot of U-23 rowers who need to be introduced. That’s a little bit longer term.”
Laurence Malcom
