Olaf Tufte

Olaf Tufte medal table
Olaf Tufte (left) with Kjetil Borch at the European Rowing Championships 2016
Rowers
Norway
Olympic Summer Games
silver	2000 Sydney	Double scull
gold	2004 Athens	One
gold	2008 Beijing	One
bronze	2016 Rio de Janeiro	Double scull
World championships
gold	2001 Lucerne	One
gold	2003 Milan	One

Olaf Karl Tufte (born April 27, 1976 in Tønsberg ) is a Norwegian rower . In 2001 and 2003 Tufte was world champion in single , in 2004 and 2008 he won the Olympic gold medal in this boat class. In addition, Tufte won one silver and one bronze medal in double sculls at the Olympic Games as well as one silver medal and three bronze medals at world championships.

Athletic career

Olaf Tufte took sixth place in the single at the Junior World Championships in 1994 . In 1995 he took part in the U23 World Championships in quadruples and won the silver medal. At his first Olympic start in Atlanta in 1996 he reached eighth place with the Norwegian four-man without a helmsman . After the thirteenth place with the Norwegian double scull at the 1997 World Championships and sixth place in Cologne in 1998 in the four without a helmsman, Tufte formed a double scull with Fredrik Bekken in 1999 . At the 1999 World Championships , the two won the bronze medal behind the Slovenes Iztok Čop and Luka Špik as well as the Germans Sebastian Mayer and Stefan Roehnert , where they were only five hundredths of a second behind the two Germans. The two Slovenes also won the final of the 2000 Olympic Games . At the finish they had a little over a second ahead of Bekken and Tufte, who in turn rowed two and a half seconds ahead of the Italian bronze medalists.

In 2001 Tufte switched to the single and in 2001 in Lucerne at his first world championships in the new boat class, he immediately won the title ahead of Iztok Čop and the Czech Václav Chalupa . At the 2002 World Championships in Seville , the German Marcel Hacker won ahead of Čop and Tufte. Tufte won his second world title in Milan in 2003 ahead of Hacker and Čop. In the final of the 2004 Olympic Games his two opponents from previous years were missing: while Iztok Čop competed in a double scull with Luka Špik and won the silver medal, Hacker missed the A final in the single and finished in seventh place. Olaf Tufte won the gold medal two seconds ahead of the Estonian Jüri Jaanson , while the Bulgarian Iwo Janakiew received bronze .

At the 2005 World Championships in Japan, the three medal winners in the single competition set themselves apart from the rest of the field early on. It won the New Zealander Mahé Drysdale with almost two seconds ahead of Tufte, who in turn had almost three seconds ahead of the Czech Ondřej Synek . The Belgian Tim Maeyens crossed the finish line in fourth, seven seconds behind Synek . Drysdale, Synek and Tufte dominated the one for the next ten years: All gold medals at the Olympic Games and World Championships went to one of the three rowers, except in 2013 at least two rowers from the trio were always on the podium.

In 2006 at the World Championships in Eton Drysdale won with nine hundredths of a second ahead of Marcel Hacker, Synek received the bronze medal with one and a half seconds ahead of fourth placed Tufte. In 2007 in Munich Drysdale won ahead of Synek and Tufte. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Tufte won his preliminary and quarter-finals. In the semifinals the Swede Lassi Karonen won ahead of Tufte and Maeyens, from the other semifinals Synek, the Briton Alan Campbell and Drysdale reached the final. In the final on August 16, 2008, the run-in was quite tight, all six rowers were less than eight seconds apart at the finish. Olaf Tufte won his second Olympic gold medal less than a second ahead of Synek, less than a second behind Synek, Drysdale crossed the finish line and received bronze.

Olaf Tufte did not win a medal at world championships in the next few years, but reached the A-final every year. He finished sixth in 2009 in Poznan , fourth in 2010 in New Zealand and sixth in 2011 in Bled . It was not until the Olympic Games in London in 2012 that he also missed the A-final and finished ninth in the overall standings.

Olaf Tufte skipped the 2013 season, in 2014 he reached the C-final at the European and World Championships in a single . In 2015, Tufte won his first international medal since winning the Olympic Games in 2008 at the European Championships in Poznan when he received bronze behind the Croatian Damir Martin and Ondřej Synek. At the 2015 World Championships , Synek won ahead of Drysdale and the Lithuanian Mindaugas Griškonis , six seconds behind the Lithuanian Tufte crossed the finish line in fourth and was just ahead of the European champion Martin.

In 2016, the now 40-year-old Olaf Tufte switched to Kjetil Borch in the double scull, Borch's previous partner Nils Jakob Hoff took over the Olympic qualification place in the single, which Tufte had fought for with fourth place at the 2015 World Championships. Borch and Tufte took fifth place at the European Championships in 2016 and won the Olympic qualification in Lucerne. At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro , Borch and Tufte won the bronze medal behind the double from Croatia and Lithuania.

Honors and private matters

In 2001 he won the election for Norway's Sportsman of the Year and the Aftenposten gold medal , and in 2008 the Fearnleys olympiske ærespris .

In addition to the season, he earns his living as a farmer on his family's farm in Horten . He is also an athlete ambassador for the development aid organization Right to Play .

Web links

• Official website
• Olaf Tufte at Worldrowing.com ( FISA database )
• Olaf Tufte in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Footnotes

1. ↑ Final result 1999
2. ↑ Final result 2000
3. ↑ Final result 2005
4. ↑ semi-finals 2008
5. ↑ Final result 2008
6. ↑ Final result 2015