Richard Rau

Richard Rau
Richard Rau (3rd from left) at the finish line in the 200 meter final in Stockholm
nation	German Empire
birthday	August 26, 1889
place of birth	Berlin ,  German Empire
size	178 cm
Weight	67 kg
date of death	November 6, 1945
Place of death	Vyazma ,  Soviet Union
Career
discipline	sprint
Best performance	100 m: 10.5 s; 200 m: 21.6 s
society	SC Charlottenburg
last change: February 13, 2017

Richard Rau (born August 26, 1889 in Berlin ; † November 6, 1945 in Vyasma , Soviet Union ) was a German sprinter who was successful in the years before and after the First World War and between 1909 and 1920 a total of eleven German champions over 100 and 200 Meters and once with the 4-by-100-meter relay .

Life

He initially started for SC Westen 05 Berlin, which merged with the Charlottenburger Sport Club 02 to form SC Charlottenburg in 1911 . The SCC keeps its memory to this day in the form of Richard Rau sports festivals.

After finishing his active career, Rau became a referee at SC Charlottenburg from 1920 . In 1933 he applied for membership in the NSDAP and was accepted. During the Second World War he was an officer in the Waffen SS . Rau died at the age of 56 in a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp.

Richard Rau had a competition weight of 62 kg with a height of 1.72 m.

World record

Rau was a multiple record runner. In 1911 he set two German records with 10.5 s over 100 meters and 22.0 s over 200 meters. His record over 100 meters was only improved in 1926 by Helmut Körnig to 10.4 s (setting of the world record held by Charles Paddock ). He improved his record over 200 meters on June 28, 1914, by four tenths of a second to 21.6 s. Hubert Houben was only able to undercut this performance ten years later (21.5 s).

It was unfortunate that it was not until the summer of 1912 that official record lists over 100 meters were introduced, in which the American Donald Lippincott was the first to enter with his 10.6 s in Stockholm on July 6 , a time that Rau had already achieved a year earlier (1911) and improved twice in the following period:

• on May 28 in Prague (10.6 s)
• on July 9 in Berlin (10.6 s)
• on August 13, 1911 in Braunschweig (10.5 s)
• on May 2, 1912 in Munich (10.5 s)

These times were just as little officially recognized as the 10.5 s that Erwin Kern ran on May 26, 1912 in Munich or the 10.4 s that Viktor Hötter achieved on June 14, 1914 in Münster .

Rau took part in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm. There he ran a world record with the German relay in the middle of the 4-by-100-meter relay . The 42.3 seconds achieved by Otto Röhr , Max Herrmann , Erwin Kern and final runner Richard Rau on July 8th were recognized by the IAAF as the first world record in this discipline . In the final, the German quartet was disqualified. The British (David Jacobs, Henry Macintosh, Victor D'Arcy, Willie Applegarth ) won in 42.4 s ahead of the Swedes (Ivan Möller, Charles Luther, Ture Persson, Knut Lindberg) in 42.6 s. Over 200 meters was rough in 22.2 s fourth behind Ralph Craig (21.7 s), Donald Lippincott (21.8 s) and Willie Applegarth (22.0 s).

More Achievements

Richard Rau (right) crosses the finish line behind Victor d'Arcy at the 1912 Olympic Games, but the German relay is later disqualified.

German championships:

• 1909: Master (100 m)
• 1910: Champion (100 and 200 m)
• 1911: Champion (100, 200 m and 110 m hurdles)
• 1912: Champion (100 and 200 m)
• 1916: Master (200 m)
• 1919: Champion (100 m) and runner-up behind Arthur Reinhardt (200 m)
• 1920: Champion (100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 m relay)
• 1921: runner-up (4 × 100 m relay)

Olympic games

1912 Stockholm:

• Fourth over 200 m in 22.2 s
• World record over 4 × 100 m in 42.3 s

Web links

Commons : Richard Rau  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Leichtathletik.de (PDF; 98 kB)
• list
• Richard Rau . In: District lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Richard Rau . sports-reference.com (English)
2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.