Eight rowers from Karlsruhe at EUC 2015

After a four-year break, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology was able to send eight athletes to the European University Championship (EUC) this year. 600 participants from 18 nations came to Hannover to compete for the titles of the 21 boat classes.

The German University Sports Association (adh) was represented by the best athletes from 18 German universities.

In June, the men's coxless four and the women's double four of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology qualified for the European University Rowing Championships. After two months of intensive training, the athletes traveled to Hanover with coach Ralf Thanhäuser and Christoph Karst for the "German home game".

The men's four without had the pleasure of a ten-boat entry field. Great Britain (Newcastle and Oxford Brookes University), Switzerland (Lausanne and Zurich), Poland (University of Economy Bydgoszcz and Kazimierz University Bydgoszcz), Netherlands (Groningen), Croatia (Split) and one boat from Leibniz University Hannover. After a clear win for Newcastle and 2nd place for Oxford Brookes, the Karlsruhe four with Matthias Reichelt, Lars von Deyn, Klaus Brümann and Simon Gessler had to prepare for an exciting hope race on Friday with the 4th place .

The women's double four with Lisa Merz, Linda Möhlendick, Christina Kunert and Linda Kromer fared similarly. The eight opposing boats from Poland (Poznan University of Technology), Great Britain (Durham University and Reading University), France (National Institute of Applied Sciences Lyon), Switzerland (Lausanne and Zurich) and also a boat from Leibniz University Hannover meant a strong field for the four Karlsruhe women. In the preliminaries, the Polish and the Hanoverian boat qualified for the A-final participation with the first two places.

On Thursday evening the big opening ceremony took place, where all 80 universities from the 18 European nations were presented again.

On Friday, both boats from Karlsruhe had to give their all again. The men's four made it very exciting for the spectators. They were in 6th place until halfway and tried to catch up with their opponents. Unfortunately, they crossed the finish line in fifth place and thus missed the A-final participation.

At noon the women were allowed to start their heat, as the women from Durham could quickly gain an advantage, the team from KIT had to fight for 2nd place, unfortunately they did not manage to overtake the women from Lausanne in the final sprint and had to be content with 3rd place and the participation in the B-final.

Friday at noon was a major break, in which the participants of the EUC were offered the opportunity to participate in various tours. The four without accompanied by the two coaches were allowed to visit the stadium of Hannover 96 and the women had a look at the city hall with the world's only leaning elevator. In the evening a representative of each boat was invited to a welcome by the mayor in the city hall of Hannover. At a dinner afterwards Lisa Merz and Simon Gessler were allowed to represent the two boats from Karlsruhe.

The final day showed Hanover again from its best side, with a light pushing side wind the Karlsruhe men's four went into the B-final in the morning. After being in 3rd place at the halfway point, the four men fought their way to 2nd place, 0.27sec behind the first. A really good race with which the four could once again show that they belong.

The double four had its B-final in the afternoon and unfortunately did not manage to win the B-final after the strong hope race. Due to a "cancer" of the stroke woman just before the 1000m mark, the boat had to stop and realign. With 23sec distance to the 2nd boat the four women from Karlsruhe had to take the defeat.

After three days of exciting races the German delegation is happy about 8 gold, 2 silver and 6 bronze medals and also won the overall ranking with this excellent performance.

The two teams would like to thank their two coaches Ralf Thanhäuser and Christoph Karst for the great support, the Karlsruhe Rowing Club Wiking for the provided boat material, their sponsor THOST Projektmanagement, as well as all friends and relatives who supported and cheered them on in such large numbers. It was a great event for the team and both athletes and coaches could be released into their well-deserved "summer break".