Already for the 24th time the Mainzer Rudergesellschaft invited this year to the St. Nicholas rowing. The invitation was accepted by 12 participants of the amateur sports group of the Karlsruhe University Rowing. Two double fours with coxswain and coxswain started in the race of the men's fours. Knowing that there are rowers in opposing boats who have already rowed in international championships, the goal was not the podium. Rather, the focus was on gaining racing experience, since many of those from Karlsruhe have never or only once competed in a race in a rowing boat. The team Christoph Umminger, Johannes Magin, Matthias Apfel and Georg Moeser with cox Michel Kluge finished sixth. They were followed in seventh place by the boat of Steffen Wiedmann, Martin Krause, Marten Heinz and Leonard Westkamp with coxswain Eszter Király. The opponents and also winners were mostly unknown until the award ceremony after all races due to the race mode. The boats were started with two minute intervals. Against the clock they went with the current to the turning buoy and then against the current back to the finish.
On the podium came the starters in the beginner mixed boat. In the race, two women and two men sat together in the boat, who learned to row in 2010 at the earliest. The KIT boat with Steffen Wiedmann, Leonard Westkamp, Christina Kölle Aven Path as well as coxswain Eszter Király reached the 3rd place and had to let a Saarbrücken boat go ahead with a second difference to the second place. With Christoph Umminger and Johannes Magin two more students from Karlsruhe raced in the same race together with the Karlsruhe Rhine Club Alemannia. With the short term cooperation, personnel gaps on both sides could be filled and a start could be made possible for the athletes. In their first race experience, the quartet could directly take fourth place behind the boat of KIT.
In the mixed race for company sports groups and students, the fastest boat rowed by the Karlsruhe students was. Michel Kluge, Aven Path, Christina Kölle and Georg Moeser took second place with coxswain Matthias Apfel in 17 minutes and 26 seconds. Winning by a 2-second margin was a boat from the University of Marburg in 17 minutes and 24 seconds. The rowers from Marburg are known as strong opponents from the German University Championships. Other Marburg boats finished third and fourth. "For us it was a bit surprising that we rowed so close behind the winner. At the same time, this gives us the incentive to continue to collect rowing kilometers together, because we can still get the two seconds out somewhere on the 4000m course," said Georg Moeser, chairman of the popular sports group of the university rowing, who was pleased with the result. "All in all, it was a very successful regatta visit for our team. We had great fun and gained good experience to compete with our growing amateur sports group at one or another regatta in the future."
A special thanks goes to the Karlsruhe Rowing Club Wiking for providing the boat material and the company THOST Projektmanagement, which accompanies the Karlsruhe university rowers as main sponsor.