Laser sailor Philipp Buhl lost the national elimination against his class rival and training partner Simon Grotelüschen and therefore missed out on a ticket to the Olympic Games. As if in defiance, the Sonthofen native has now sailed to the only German medal in the Olympic area with bronze. Before the final medal race, he was still in second place.
"I'm less wistful than I thought," said Buhl. "On the contrary, I'm more than happy about third place. There will be another Olympic Games in four years' time and 35 World Cups and four World Championships in between." Buhl, who will remain Olympic starter Simon Grotelüschen's training partner until the Games, believes the man from Lübeck has a good chance. "Simon is rightly competing at the Games," says Buhl. "He's a hot favourite for a medal. The Australian Tom Slingsby is a house number, but after that anything is possible."
Simon Grotelüschen finished fifth in the medal race and thus maintained his sixth place overall.
More medals out of reach
German athletes achieved top ten placings in six other disciplines. Katrin Kadelbach and Friederike Belcher moved up one place to ninth in the medal race, as did the star boat duo Robert Stanjek and Frithjof Kleen, who moved up from tenth to eighth with fifth place. Among the surfers, Toni Wilhelm came seventh and Moana Delle ninth, among the Paralympic sailors Heiko Kröger came fifth in the 2.4 mR and the Sonar crew Jens Kroker, Robert Prem and Siegmund Mainka came ninth.
The medal race was missed by Franziska Goltz in 22nd place in the Laser Radial, Ferdinand Gerz and Patrick Follmann in 18th place in the men's 470, Tobias Schadewaldt and Hannes Baumann in 17th place in the 49er and Mathias Miller in 23rd place in the Finn Dinghy.
The best nation was Great Britain with four gold, three silver and four bronze medals, ahead of Australia and the Netherlands. Germany came 13th in the national rankings.
Lars Bolle
Chief Editor Digital
