He was able to smile again: Oliver Zeidler also draws a lot of positives from his bronze medal at the European Championships in Bled. © meinruderbild.de
Many amateur athletes know this, albeit from a different level than that of Oliver Zeidler: You want to step on the gas again, ignite the turbo one last time - but your body just can't do it anymore. "I didn't bring my strength, which was still available at the end, into the water. My forearms became firm, they didn't obey me anymore," says Schwaiger. In the final of the European Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia, it was "only" enough for the two-time World and European Champion in the single sculls.
Schwaig – Can the 26-year-old be congratulated at all, after all, he had set his sights on gold? Yes. He gratefully accepts the congratulations of our newspaper, but immediately adds: "I was a bit disappointed." Compared to the fiasco at his home European Championships in Munich 2022, things went much better for Zeidler this time. At the finish line, however, the disappointment was immediately visible. With a slightly tormented look, he accepted his bronze medal. "I wanted more, of course, but at least I'm not going home empty-handed," he says with mixed feelings.
The third European Championship title after 2019 and 2021 came to nothing, as Dutchman Leonard van Lierop and Stefanos Ntouskos from Greece moved ahead of the title favourites. He got off to a great start and was in front after the first 300 meters. But he told our newspaper the day after, he didn't really find his rhythm: "The conditions were very challenging." By this he means, on the one hand, the pushing wind, which does not really suit him, and on the other hand: motorboat waves. So waves from journalist boats, for example, and the lake was not closed to tourist traffic nearby. But, Zeidler also emphasizes, the other athletes also had to struggle with it.
In the semi-finals, he had prevailed with a three-second lead over Ntouskos. Nevertheless, Zeidler says: "I mainly take motivation with me." The finale was "a relatively good race". And he has found that the gaps to his fiercest competitors are not great. That's why the whole thing was definitely a positive "aha experience" for him. He has shown that he is now more competitive in difficult conditions. Unlike at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, for example, when he even missed the final run as the top favorite.
"Maybe the conditions will be better for me. Headwind or shallow water, that's more my thing," says Zeidler, looking ahead to the next World Cup in Varese, Italy, in mid-June, but also to the World Championships in Belgrade at the beginning of September.
"It was important that it turned out to be a medal and that our training worked," says Zeidler full of confidence, before once again letting go of a small tip in the direction of the German Rowing Association. Because with his father Heimo, he is left out of training, and this is going better than at the bases, he sums up. Apparently this is the case, because Zeidler was the only German podium finish in 14 Olympic boat classes. Among other things, the former German flagship, the eight, finished a disappointing fourth.
After the finale on Sunday, the Zeidlers – his father, by the way, was much happier with the race than he was, says his son – quickly returned to the hotel for lunch and quickly continued their journey back to Schwaig. The medal was not celebrated, not really. He prefers to refrain from doing so "until the season is really over". And that is the case after Belgrade. Maybe then with the third World Championship gold around the neck.
