World Rowing Championships

The World championships from 2019 were in Linz, Austria, and it was the most important qualification tournament for the Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020. In the first place I was attending because I was the spare for the lightweight double of Tim Brys and Niels Van Zandweghe. But to earn a lot of experience at the same time, I was allowed to row some races in the lightweight single scull.

It was for me the first time that I stood face-to-face with the big boys. Big boys lik Ollie Zeidler, Damir Martin, Sinkovic Brothers... they were all attending! It was very impressive, for being able to experience all this as an 18 year old.

My races started the 25th of August, in the heats I had no chance to get immediately into the quarterfinals (ABCD). So I ended up against Gary O'Donovan, he had a bad race the day before, in the repechages. But against a vice Olympic Champion and the World Champion U23 I had again not much chance to get trough these repechages.

After ending fourth in the repechages, I had to row the semifinals E/F. I became third almost equal with the second place. On thursday I rowed my E-final for 25th until 30th place, I ended in fourth place again with only 0,04 sec behind the third place. Afterall I ended as 28th on my first elite competition as the youngest rower of the whole tournament.

It was a really nice experience to row in Linz at the highest level and being able to see how Tim and Niels achieved there place for the Olympics at the same time.

Click here for the full results