Ronald Rauhe

Ronald Rauhe (born 3 October 1981 in Berlin).

Abstract

Rauhe is an athlete from Germany who competes in flatwater canoeing. He has won eleven world championship gold medals in the Kayak discipline, more than any other kayak racer currently in competition.

Early Sports Career

Rauhe was selected for the 1997 World Junior Championships in Lahti, Finland at the age of just fifteen years nine months. Competing against paddlers up to three years older he won two medals - gold in the K4 500m and silver in the individual (K1) 500m, an unprecedented achievement for a fifteen-year-old. After winning more three gold medals at the next edition of the world junior championships in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1999 he stepped up to the senior German national team.

Senior Sports Career

Still aged only seventeen, he enjoyed immediate success, taking the bronze medal in the men's K-1 200m World Championship final the same year.

At the Sydney Olympics in 2000 Rauhe won a bronze medal in the K-2 500m with team-mate Tim Wieskötter.

Since then the Rauhe/Wieskötter partnership has enjoyed unrivalled success, winning the major K-2 500m race every year (six world titles and the 2004 Olympic gold). The pair have also won seven straight European championships over 500m.

Rauhe also dominated the K-1 200m individual sprint, winning three consecutive golds in both the world and European championships before losing out to Spain's Carlos Pérez in 2005.

If Rauhe's rivals hoped this marked the beginning of a decline in the German's fortunes they were to be disappointed. In 2006 Rauhe was back on top form and won more titles than ever before. At the European Championships in Račice, Czech Republic he won three gold medals, retaining his K2 500m title, regaining the K1 200m crown from Pérez and winning the K2 200m for the first time in his career.

These three victories were repeated at the World Championships in Szeged, Hungary. Rauhe's dominance was best illustrated by his victory in the K2 200m final in a race that was scheduled just twenty minutes after his K1 final (and against a field of rested opponents none of whom had competed in the earlier race).

At the World Championships in his home-country Germany in 2007 he and his partner Tim Wieskötter won again the K2-500m and came second in the K2-200m.

World Championship Golds

* K2 500m 2007 Duisburg, Germany
* K1 200m 2006 Szeged, Hungary
* K2 200m 2006 Szeged, Hungary
* K2 500m 2006 Szeged, Hungary
* K2 500m 2005 Zagreb, Croatia
* K1 200m 2003 Gainesville, USA
* K2 500m 2003 Gainesville, USA
* K1 200m 2002 Seville, Spain
* K2 500m 2002 Seville, Spain
* K1 200m 2001 Poznań, Poland
* K2 500m 2001 Poznań, Poland

External links

* http://www.ronald-rauhe.de/