Rowing gold for Germany
August 31, 2013The German women's team (Britta Oppelt, Annekatrin Thiele, Carina Bär and Julia Richter) successfully defended its world championship title, defeating Canada and Poland to come in first and claim gold with a time of 6:41.86.
"I can hardly describe the emotions. It's really wonderful and a reward for our hard training," said strokeswoman Oppelt.
The team (pictured above) had won silver at last year's London Olympics.
The men's team (Tim Grohmann, Karl Schulze, Paul Heinrich and Lauritz Schoof), which was victorious at last year's Olympics, was unable to repeat its triumph, coming in second place to Croatia, but in front of Great Britain.
Strokesman Grohmann explained his team's weaker performance this year by saying that it had trained a little less owing to study commitments.
Germany also claimed one bronze medal when Lena Müller and Anja Noske gained third place in the women's lightweight double sculls.
This year's rowing world championships have taken place on Tangeum Lake in the city of Chungju, about 113 km (70 miles) south of the capital, Seoul.
tj/ccp (dpa, AFP, SID)