Saturday, August 7th, 2021
Over for Olympic champion Brendel
German kayak foursome paddle into the final
The two German kayak foursome men and women make it to the finals of the Olympic Games without any major problems. For Sebastian Brendel, however, the dream of gold has burst. The 33-year-old canoeist clearly missed the finals on his parade route.
The German kayak four with Max Rendschmidt, Ronald Rauhe, Tom Liebscher and Max Lemke paddled confidently to the A-final. The experienced crew prevailed on Saturday on the Sea Forest Waterway in Tokyo with half a boat length as the semi-final winner. The German parade boat won the gold medal in Rio in 2016 on twice the distance with Max Hoff, Rendschmidt, Liebscher and Marcus Groß and is also considered a top favorite in Tokyo.
The women’s kayak foursome with Sabrina Hering-Pradler, Melanie Gebhardt, Jule Hake and Tina Dietze also made it into the final with a light headwind and more pleasant temperatures due to the cloudy weather. The newly formed team, which last won the World Cup in Szeged, Hungary, only just had to admit defeat to the Hungarians and Belarus.
The three-time Canadian Olympic champion Sebastian Brendel, however, clearly missed the final on his parade route. The Potsdamer landed in the one over 1000 meters in the semifinals only in seventh place and has to watch the medal award. Brendel won gold on this track in 2012 and 2016. Brendel should have reached at least fourth place to make it to the final.
Team mate Conrad Scheibner, on the other hand, made it into the final as third in the same race. There the 24-year-old led after 250 meters, but he couldn’t really keep up on the Sea Forest Waterway. In the end, Scheibner was sixth, 9.317 seconds back. The Brazilian Isaquias Queiroz Dos Santos won the Olympic gold medal. Silver went to Liu Hao from China over the 1000 meter distance, bronze went to Serghei Tarnovschi (Moldova).
The 33-year-old Brendel had to take the detour via the quarter-finals on Friday, the wind from the right caused considerable problems for the left-wing paddler. In the semifinals, he also had to compete on the far right lane, again strong wind was blowing. Scheibner, who started right next to him, did better.
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