Kraft Schepke

Kraft Schepke (born March 3, 1934 in Königsberg ) is a former German rower . He and his brother Frank Schepke won Olympic gold in Rome in 1960.

Schepke started for the rowing club ATV Ditmarsia Kiel . In 1958, the four-man without a helmsman of the racing community Ditmarsia Kiel and Ratzeburger Rowing Club with the line-up of Karl-Heinz Hopp , Manfred Rulffs , Kraft Schepke and Hans Lenk won both the German championships and the European championships in Poznan . For this he and his team were awarded the Silver Laurel Leaf on January 31, 1959 .

In 1959, the eighth of the Ratzeburger Ruderclub and Ditmarsia Kiel racing association became German champions. The crew of Klaus Bittner , Karl-Heinz Hopp , Hans Lenk , Manfred Rulffs , Frank Schepke , Kraft Schepke, Walter Schröder and Karl-Heinrich von Groddeck with helmsman Willi Padge also won the European Championships in 1959 shortly afterwards. The media coverage of this victory for Germany -Eight was enormous, the boat was voted Team of the Year .

In 1960 the eighth won the German championships ahead of the eighth in Germania Düsseldorf in 1904 . The Schepke brothers also won the championships in the four-man without a helmsman and in the four-man with a helmsman. For the qualification for the all-German team against the boats from the GDR, the Düsseldorf eighth divided into a four with and a four without, the eight from Ratzeburg and Kiel under the coach Karl Adam qualified for the Olympic Games . At the Olympic regattas on Lake Albano , the eighth won his prelim and also won the final with a time of 5: 57.18 minutes ahead of the boat from Canada. The nine athletes were once again named Team of the Year.

In 1961, the Schepke brothers with Karl-Heinz Hopp and Klaus Bittner and helmsman Reiner Brümmer started as a four-man with helmsman. The boat from Ditmarsia Kiel won both the German championships and the European championships.

After completing his training as a qualified sports teacher, Kraft Schepke worked as the main department head at the Lower Saxony State Sports Association in Hanover.

literature

• Bodo Harenberg (editorial): The stars of the sport from A-Z . Darmstadt 1970
• Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. The Chronicle II. London 1948 - Tokyo 1964. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-328-00740-7 .

Web links

• Kraft Schepke in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sports report of the Federal Government of September 23, 1973 to the Bundestag - Printed matter 7/1040 - page 73
2. ↑ German champions in the eighth
3. ↑ German successes at European rowing championships