Baden-Baden: Rowing large Oliver Zeidler is Germany’s athlete of the 12 months | EUROtoday

A sporting 12 months filled with feelings with epochal victories and shock triumphs, with stumbling favorites, crime thrillers and dramas is coming to an finish. A sporting 12 months that additionally introduced out new heroes in Germany, with the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris as a world spotlight and the European Football Championship as a continental spotlight. This Sunday night, within the festively embellished Bénazet Hall of the Kurhaus in Baden-Baden, the “Athlete of the Year” gala appeared again on a shifting sporting 12 months in 2024 and the perfect had been honored.

The search was on for the successors of the nationwide basketball workforce, biathlete Denise Herrmann-Wick and gymnast Lukas Dauser. The conventional occasion befell for the 78th time – and numerous present and former prime German athletes did the honors, together with Wimbledon winner Angelique Kerber, gymnastics hero Fabian Hambüchen, Olympic canoe champion Ronald Rauhe and monitor biking queen Kristina Vogel. Will all three important awards this night go to Olympic champions? How do the German Ironman winners, Bayer Leverkusen and the para athletes carry out?

The preselection comes from the squad athletes themselves, who’ve created a prime 15 listing for every class. Then greater than 3,000 members of the Association of German Sports Journalists had the chance to submit one to 5 factors for the athlete and workforce of the 12 months. The first award of the night went to the Athlete of the Year. Four Germans topped their careers with Olympic gold in the summertime, of which jumper Christian Kukuk and eventer Michael Jung, who received particular person gold for the third time, didn’t make it into the highest 3. Rower Oliver Zeidler received the election simply forward of swimmer Lukas Märtens, third Patrick Lange grew to become a triathlete.

Zeidler, third within the 2023 election when he grew to become world champion, achieved his masterpiece in Paris. After three World Championship titles, Olympic gold was the crowning achievement of a profession that had as soon as begun within the swimming pool. And after the debacle of the Tokyo Games, when he was eradicated as the highest favourite within the semi-finals, he misplaced 100 kilos of weight on the Paris regatta course.

The 22-year-old Lukas Märtens not solely received the primary gold for the German workforce in Paris, but additionally achieved one thing historic together with his victory within the 400 meter freestyle: It was the primary Olympic gold medal for a German man within the pool because the 1988 Games in Seoul, when “Albatross” Michael Groß and Uwe Daßler had triumphed. Patrick Lange, who was voted athlete of the 12 months in 2018 after his second Hawaii victory, achieved what many not anticipated in October after troublesome years: the 38-year-old received the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii for the third time. “My biggest coup,” he says.

Melanie Haack is a sports activities editor. She has been reporting on Olympic sports activities for WELT since 2011 and was additionally on web site on the Paris Games. You can discover all of her articles right here.