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Sovereign in Lucerne: Oliver Zeidler. © Philipp Schmidli/KEYSTONE/dpa
A courageous appearance in the repechage raises hopes for the final in the German rowing eight. However, the only gold candidate on the Lucerne Rotsee is Oliver Zeidler in a single.
Lucerne – The Germany Eight moved into the final of the traditional Rotsee regatta after a significant improvement in form.
With second place in the repechage, the parade boat of the German Rowing Association (DRV) in Lucerne averted the impending end. The crew around batsman Mattes Schönherr (Potsdam) delivered a hard-fought finish with the Dutch, but had to admit defeat by a narrow margin of 13/100 seconds.
“It was a nice board-to-board fight, but that last bit was missing. That’s what we’re aiming for in the finale and we want to go as far up the field as possible,” commented Schlager Schönherr.
The World Cup final in Switzerland, in which for the first time this year almost all of the world’s top athletes are present, is considered the dress rehearsal for the World Championships in Belgrade at the beginning of September. In the circle of the best, the DRV big boat offered a courageous performance this time. In this way, the large six-second gap to the Dutch could be significantly reduced compared to the run-up the day before. That raises hopes of a podium finish.
“The finale will be a completely different house number. We have to make sure that we’re there from the start,” said eights coach Sabine Tschäge, full of hopes for a stronger first half of the course for her crew.
Zeidler as favorite in the final
Unlike the eighth, Oliver Zeidler goes into the final as one of the favourites. With the comfortable victory in the semifinals, the German singles champion from Munich underpinned his title ambitions and relegated the New Zealander Thomas Mackintosh to second place with a good two-second advantage. “I’m very satisfied. Do a race like today again – maybe faster in the middle – then it should be fine,” commented Zeidler, full of hope for a triumph in the skiff final on Sunday. Alexandra Föster is also on course for a medal. Only Karolien Florijn from the Netherlands was faster than the 21-year-old from Meschede in the semifinals.
In addition to the men’s eights and the two ones, the DRV is also represented in the 14 Olympic boat classes with the women’s and men’s fours in the final. Both teams fought for second place in the repechage. dpa
2023-07-09 00:06:48
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