article by Nicola Pucci
If you look through the Olympic rolls of honour, you will find sports stories of some interest. Let’s take, for example, the top ten of multiple medalists at the Rowing Games: alongside 6 Romanian and 3 British athletes who achieved the highest number of metals, a German girl named Kathrin Boron appears. And his palmares, almost never mentioned, is truly one to take one’s hat off to.
Kathrin was born on 4 November 1969 in Eisenhüttenstadt, in what was then East Germany, and as a child, together with her older sister, she practiced athletics, but later had to interrupt her activity due to health problems. What seems like a sentence, in fact for her will instead be the keystone of her sporting life, as during a scouting of young talents she was diverted towards rowingreporting natural ability and becoming affiliated with the rowing club of SG Dynamo Potsdam. She is just over 13 years old, and from that day the path has been paved.
Boron excelled straight away, winning one youth title after another and winning two golds at the Junior World Championshipsin the 4 pairs in Račice in 1986 and in the singles in Cologne in the 1987 edition, already entering the senior national team the following year, although an ankle injury jeopardizes her ability to participate in the Seoul Olympics from 1988. You will have the opportunity to redeem yourself, with interest.
In 1989, in fact, the German began her collection of medals at the World Championships, triumphing in the 4 sculls in Bled together with Sybille Schmidt, Jutta Behrendt and Jana Thieme, and then repeating it with Beate Schramm on Lake Barrington in Tasmania twelve months laterfor what will be his last success under the East German flag. In Vienna (1991, 2 sculls with Schramm herself), at Lake Aiguebelette (1997, both in 4 sculls and 2 sculls, this time with Meike Evers), in Cologne (1998, 4 sculls), in Santa Caterina in Canada (1999, together with Thieme) and finally in Lucerne (2001, paired with Kerstin Kowalski), Boron is the undisputed queen of world rowing, and with 8 world championship gold medals in total, to which add 5 silver, his palmares is the largest in the history of the specialty.
2 pairs and 4 pairs, therefore, are the exercises in which Kathrin stands out above the others (even though in 1995, at the World Championships in Tampere, she competed in the singles, finishing fourth just shy of the podium), and it is now time to go and get that Olympic glory that was denied to her in Seoul 1988. We start with Barcelona, 1992when, associata a Kerstin Koppen (who replaces Schramm, who opted for the single competition, where she will only be 12th), enters the water at Lake Banyoles for the 2 sculls competition. And the Teutonic ones find their most reliable rivals in the Romanian Elisabeta Lipa (winner of the singles competition) and Veronica Cochela (silver in Seoul with Lipa herself), already marking the two best times in the heat (respectively, 7’16″74 for the Germans and 7’16″41 for the Romanian), with the Chinese couple made up of Gu Xiaoli and Lu Huali taking on the role of third wheel, having imposed themselves in the third heat albeit with a higher time, 7’27″62. And if in the semi-final Boron and Koppen gave Lipa and Cochela a gap of over two and a half seconds, with the Asians setting the best time in the second in 6’58″09, in the final the challenge is launched, with the two favored boats initially competing in pairs, before the decisive sprint that allows the German pair to go and get the gold medal in Olympic record time, 6’49″00with the Romanian women silver in 6’51″47 and the Chinese, tested by their exploits in the semi-final, saving the bronze from the attack launched by the Australians Philippa Baker and Brenda Lawson.
Four years later, at the 1996 Atlanta Games, Boron competes with the 4 scull team also made up of Katrin Rutschow, Koppen herself and Jana Sorgers, who by virtue of the world titles won in the editions of Indianapolis in 1994 and Tampere in 1995, as well as being the reigning Olympic champion in both Seoul and Barcelona, attracts the underdogs. The Chinese team, which relies on Cao Mianying, Zhang Xiuyun, Liu Xirong and Gu Xiaoli, is the only one to have defeated Germany in the past (1993 World Cup in Račice), but is forced to go through the repechage in order to access the final. The Germans win the second heat without any problems with the best time of 6’36″00, Canada wins the first heat in 6’39″32, and it is precisely the 4 sculls from the country of the maple leaf that tries to undermine the favorites for the decisive act al Lago Lanierbut were then irremediably detached. Kathrin and her teammates win as predicted, 6’27″44, and for the other two steps of the podium, Canada and the surprising Ukraine wage a tight duel which finally sees the ex-Soviet teams, with the help of the photo finish, ahead of their rivals by the trifle of 2 cents. What matters is that Boron puts her second five-ring gold medal around her neck. And we’re only halfway there.
Alternating effectively between 2 and 4 of a pair, at the 2000 Sydney Olympics Boron competed together with Jana Thiemeand if the two Germans bring with them the world title won the year before in Canada, the American girls, reigning champions, are not present in the water at Sydney International Regatta Centre. And that’s how it is the Germans find two ancient rivals, Lipa and Cochela, as their most credible challengersdefeated in Barcelona in 1992. The Germans and Romanian did not disappoint expectations, setting the two best times in the heat, 7’04″74 and 7’08″70 respectively, and entering with full sail into a final for which the Netherlands (Pieta van Dishoeck and Eeke van Nes), Lithuania (Birute Sakickiene and Kristina Poplavskaja), the United States (Carol Skricki and Ruth Davidon) and Australia (Marina Hatzakis and Bronwyn Roye). But in the decisive moment there really is no story, the gap between Germany’s 2nd team and the other boats is too clearwith the Americans holding second position until 1500 meters and then seeing each other overtaken by the Dutch who, with an imperious final rush, which allows them to record the best time in the last quarter of the race, finish on the second step of the podiumtrailed by almost 5 seconds by the Germans but well ahead of the Lithuanians, who snatched the bronze ahead of the United States and the disappointing Romanians, only fifth.
With three golds around his neck, Kathrin returns to four sculls for the 2004 Athens Olympics, undoubtedly facilitated by the fact that it is proof that more than any other, over the years and in major events, it has smiled on Germany’s boats. Even though, at the 2003 World Cup atMilan seaplane base, Australia and Belarus were able to beat the Germans. And at theOlympiako Kopelatodramio Skhoinia the forecasts are fully respected. Meike Evers, Manuela Lutze and Kerstin El-Qalqili, as well as obviously Boron, make up the quartet that easily overcomes the difficulty of the drums opening of the competition, winning the second in 6’16″49, with the Great Britain rig, on which Alison Mowbray, Debbie Flood, Frances Houghton and Rebecca Romero row, who in the first reaches the finish line setting the best time in 6 ’15″60. And with Australia, Russia, the United States and Ukraine entering the final through the gauntlet of the repechage races, on August 22nd, at 9.30am local time, Germany and Great Britain are ready to battle for Olympic glory. Which, finally, comforts the efforts of Boron and her companionswho pass in the lead at the passage of the 500 (+ 1″18), 1000 (+ 2″73) and 1500 meters (+2″99), for then crossing the finish line with a definitive margin of 1″97, which earned Kathrin her fourth gold in four consecutive editions of the Games.
There would still be time for one last prestigious appointment, namely the 2008 Beijing Olympicsbut in those distant waters of the East Boron has to settle for bronze, again in the 4 sculls. Does not matter, his place among the legends of rowing is already largely guaranteed.