Thursday July 29, 2021
Olympic debacle for gold favorite
Zeidler’s dream ends in waves
By Michael Wilkening, Tokyo
Actually, the gold medal is firmly planned for Oliver Zeidler. Although the 25-year-old comes to rowing as a career changer, he is considered a top favorite. The Olympic exit in the semifinals is all the more surprising. Also because Zeidler’s lack of experience may prove fatal.
Oliver Zeidler did what frustrated athletes do over and over in the days of Tokyo. The rower escaped public questions. After lying for a long time on the landing stage of the Sea Forest Waterway in the port of Tokyo, the 25-year-old withdrew into the catacombs. Shortly before that, his dream and with it a fairytale story from a start-finish victory to an Olympic gold medal had been shattered. Five years ago Zeidler counted tiles in the swimming pool and was a talented but not outstanding young swimmer before he switched to another sport. Three years later, Zeidler was world champion in single and two years later would win the gold medal in Japan – that was the Zeidler’s plan. It crashed into the waves on the regatta course.
“We weren’t as good today as we usually were at the regattas. The conditions were very extreme,” said Heino Zeidler, father and trainer in personal union. The 49-year-old was a world-class rower himself in the 1990s and was stunned on Thursday. A few days earlier it was very different. “That was a training run. Oliver can drive this pace three times in a row”, reported Heino Zeidler after the sovereign preliminary victory last Friday.
The coach and dad looked like the junior calm and relaxed. In the quarter-finals everything went smoothly too, Zeidler won without any problems and the only question outwardly was whether he would win his semi-final run and from which lane he would start into the final on Friday. Everything went according to plan – until the semifinals turned out to be unexpected.
The wind is the worst enemy
It became apparent early on that Zeidler Junior was not in top form. Nevertheless, he was initially on course for the final, in the middle of the 2000-meter-long route the German was comfortably in second place, even 500 meters from the finish he held this position. The first three bought the ticket for the finals – and Zeidler did not make it into the top three. First the Dane Sverri Nielsen pulled past him and from stroke to stroke the German looked more tense. He could not counter the final sprint of the Russian Alexander Vyazovkin. With the difficult conditions on the track, with sliding wind and strong waves, the gold favorite was no longer able to stop at the crucial moment.
In the waters of Tokyo, the fact that as a lateral entrant he found rowing late became a disadvantage. No rower in the single range has such a great pushing ability in his legs as Zeidler, the strength values of the Munich man are impressive – and made for great success early on. Zeidler lacks the technology to get his power perfectly into the water via the rudder blade even in difficult conditions. The feeling for the element is lost to a certain extent. The competitors, who mostly started performance rowing in childhood, have an advantage. The wind is Zeidler’s strongest opponent, and there is plenty of wind in Tokyo right now.
Training in the parents’ basement
The failure of the gold hope will subsequently trigger a critical examination of the special preparation of the Zeidlers. In contrast to the entire German rowing team, the single driver did not attend the final training camp before the games in Japan. Zeidler stayed in Munich and used an ergometer to simulate the conditions that would come his way in the port of Tokyo.
He has set up a training room in the basement of his parents’ house, and in the weeks before his flight to Japan he recreates the special climatic conditions there. The neighboring sauna was heated up and the doors left open to raise the temperature. With fans and water bottles, the humidity was supposed to be brought to a level similar to that in Tokyo.
The man from Munich only flew from Germany to Asia on Wednesday a week ago, two days before the start of the competition. “In Germany, I have the perfect prerequisites for preparation,” he said, justifying the decision a few weeks ago. He didn’t just reel off his training program in the basement with his parents, he also got himself in shape on the regatta course at home, which is similar to the events in Tokyo. The wind and waves that prevailed on the Sea Forest Waterway, however, could not be simulated there.
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