Theo Reinhardt (Berlin), Felix Groß (Leipzig), Leon Rohde (Hamburg) and Domenic Weinstein (Villingen-Schwenningen) clocked a time of 3:48.861 minutes in their heat against Canada in Izu on Tuesday. This was a good one and a half seconds under the old German record, but not enough to qualify for the medal heats. Italy, with superstar Filippo Ganna, set a world record of 3:42.307 minutes.
Germany has been waiting for an Olympic medal in its former favourite discipline since the gold medal race in Sydney 21 years ago. German foursomes have won five Olympic victories and 16 world championship titles since 1962, but after second place at the 2002 World Championships, German teams have only lagged behind the world leaders.
Team sprinters also without a medal
The German team sprinters also clearly missed out on the medal runs. Timo Bichler (Kaiserslautern), Stefan Bötticher (Chemnitz) and Maximilian Levy (Cottbus) finished their race on the wooden oval in Izu with a time of 42.733 seconds against Great Britain (41.829) and ended up in fifth place. The Olympic champions were the Netherlands, silver went to Great Britain and France won bronze.
Four-time Olympic participant Levy had won bronze with the team sprinters in 2008 and 2012. Five years ago in Rio, however, the German trio came away empty-handed. Rene Wolff, Stefan Nimke and Jens Fiedler took the only Olympic victory in Athens in 2004.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:210803-99-681117/4
