With two World Championship titles in Olympic disciplines and a historic league triple with victories in the German Club Championship, the cup final and the Champions League, the NRV's best athletes made a splash in the 2022 sporting year. The NRV Olympic Team celebrated its successes this week in the clubhouse on the Alster. There was a spirit of optimism in the air at the Christmas party, but also a little melancholy.
"If he can do it, we can do it too!"
Unlike German footballers or skiers, the NRV crews sailed on a golden wave of success in 2022: iQFoil ace Sebastian Krödel put the national sailing team in pole position in the new Olympic windsurfing discipline from 2024 when he first won the World Championship series and then the thrilling final off Brest. After the gold final, the 31-year-old from Radolfzell had tears running down his face and a sense of relief when he said: "The pressure was unbelievably high. This title symbolises that I can win." A year and a half before the 2024 Olympics, Kördel shares his valuable realisation with the sister of his partner Helena Wanser...
Luise Wanser, NRV home-grown sailor and sixth at the 2021 Olympics with NRV foresailor Anastasiya Winkel, said to herself after Kördel's World Championship victory: "If he can do it, we can do it too." 28 years after the last German World Championship gold in the 470 dinghy, Luise Wanser and her co-sailor Philipp Autenrieth once again climbed to the top spot on the World Championship podium. In the new Olympic mixed discipline, the North German-Bavarian crew achieved an outstanding series at the end of October off Sdot Yam in Israel. Luise Wanser and Philipp Autherieth won the world championships one race before the end.
"I wanted to become world champion ever since my first coach explained to me about the wind bands..."
"We achieved this in our first season together, a year and a half before the Olympic regatta in Marseille, where we want to win gold," Wanser announced at the Christmas party. She had got to know and love optimist sailing 15 years earlier at the NRV. "When I look out onto the Alster today, it's my home. I wanted to become a world champion ever since my first coach explained to me about the wind bands and the 'rudder on, rudder off'. I've always been able to achieve everything with the huge support of the NRV and the Olympic Team," says the 25-year-old.
This was also the experience of Wanser's former foresailor Anastsasiya Winkel. The native Ukrainian, who has been married to her husband and helmsman Malte Winkel for five years in 2021, received her naturalisation certificate in 2021. Her last-minute Olympic campaign with Wanser could even have led to an Olympic medal had it not been for two overly harsh race disqualifications due to trapeze trousers that were 200 grams too heavy. On course for the 2024 Olympics, both NRV duos - Wanser/Autenrieth and world championship sixth-placed Winkel/Winkel - as well as other DSV crews in the German Sailing Team are now training together before they have to compete against each other in the battle for just one Olympic ticket in the 470 Mixed.
A successful aid mission and a wistful farewell
In addition to her sporting endeavours, Anastasiya Winkel has helped more than 80 refugees find accommodation since the outbreak of war in Ukraine. The 19-year-old says: "I wouldn't have been able to achieve so much if the NRV and many of its members hadn't immediately got behind me. Knowing that you have support here, even in difficult situations, means a lot to me."
Berliners Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel also had this support for more than 13 years in the North German club of their choice. The 2019 World Championship runners-up bid farewell to their active Olympic careers at the NRV Olympic Team's pre-Christmas evening this week, and not without some sadness. "You have managed to combine performance with ease, you are idols for the next generation," said Laser World Champion Philipp Buhl, paying tribute to his companions, club mates and friends. In 2008, Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel also had to prove themselves as candidates for a year before they were accepted into the NRV Olympic Team and embarked on their world careers.
"Becoming a member of the NRV Olympic Team is no walk in the park"
Heil and Plößel, also known as "HP Sailing", presented their "lucky fairy" Gyde Persiehl with two framed starting discs from the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and 2021 in Japan at the Christmas party. Ten 49er dinghies, with which Heil and Plößel won two Olympic bronze medals, World Championship silver and World Championship bronze, were named after the wife of the NRV Olympic team founder. Gunter Persiehl founded the powerful performance squad following the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. The NRV Olympic Team is considered a role model for the promotion of top-class sport in the German club world far beyond the world of sailing.
"Becoming a member of the NRV Olympic Team is no easy feat," said Gunter Persiehl, "but once you've made it as a candidate, we're on the same page." This is ensured today by the emphatic and experienced NRV Managing Director and Sports Director Klaus Lahme, potent club sponsors with a strong enthusiasm for regatta sport and the competitive sailors themselves in intensive dialogue with each other.
"It doesn't happen on Netflix or far away, but here in this club"
The NRV Olympic Team trophy, which is also engraved with the name of NRV sailor and Laser World Champion Philipp Buhl, was awarded to two teams for the first time in the club's history this year: Seb Kördel and Luise Wanser/Philipp Autenrieth. Both are among the medal candidates with a view to the 2024 Olympics if they can prevail nationally in the battle for an Olympic start and clear the qualification hurdles. They share their brilliant Olympic goal with other club mates such as Nastja Winkel and up-and-coming talents.
The NRV Olympic Team is the successful flagship of the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein, the figurehead for good work in the children's and youth area and on the path of the greatest talents to the international top. No other sailing club and hardly any other German sports club has come close to the NRV's achievements in the Olympic and other areas this year. "Here in this club you have the international environment to win at world level," states the new Olympic attacker Seb Kördel, "that doesn't happen on Netflix or somewhere far away, but it happens here and in this club."
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
