Last Test For Team Germany
2008-06-03
Craig Lord
The German Olympic team is preparing to race at the Monaco round of the Mare Nostrum Tour - as the series gets underway this weekend - before embarking on a month of training camps that lead to an orientation and testing weekend before the journey East

The German Olympic team is preparing to race at the Monaco round of the Mare Nostrum Tour - as the series gets underway this weekend - before embarking on a month of training camps that lead to an orientation and testing weekend before the journey East for the Games in China.

The meet in Monte Carlo will be the last competition at which German swimmers are ready to race hard before the Games. After the weekend, some will head to altitude in Sierra Nevada (June 10 to July 1), others to berlin (June 16 to 27), while the whole squad will gather in the German capital from July 12 to 17. Testing will take place in Magdeburg from June 18 to 20 before the squad, led by Orjan Madsen, travel to a holding camp from July 25 to August 5 in Kumamoto, Japan. Team Germany will arrive in Beijing on August 6, ready for start of racing over nine days from August 9.

Beijing will be as much a test of Germany fear of self as it will a test of where it stands in comparison to other nations in the pool after disappointing results in 2000 and 2004.The latest issue of SwimNews Magazine carries a commentary from Karin Helmstaedt on the relatively poor state of the once-mighty German swimming. You can buy that here.

Meantime, some of the team will also race at the Barcelona and/or Canet rounds of the Mare Nostrum, including Sarah Poewe, Helge Meeuw and Petra Dallmann.

The German team in Monte Carlo, as announced by the PPS Cosmos media service for the DSV:

Women (14): Antje Buschschulte (SC Magdeburg), Petra Dallmann (SV Nikar
Heidelberg), Jaana Ehmcke (Potsdamer SV), Meike Freitag (SG Frankfurt),
Daniela Götz (SSG 81 Erlangen), Nicole Hetzer (SV Wacker Burghausen),
An-nika Lurz (SV Würzburg 05), Sarah Poewe (SG Bayer
Wuppertal/Uerdingen/Dormagen), Daniela Samulski (SG Bayer
Wuppertal/Uerdingen/ Dormagen), Katharina Schiller (VfV Hildesheim), Sonja
Schöber (SG Dortmund), Britta Steffen (SG Neukölln Berlin), Lisa Vitting
(SG Mülheim/Ruhr), Christin Zenner (VfV Hildesheim).



Men (10): Paul Biedermann (SV Halle/Saale), Lars Conrad (Wfr. 98
Hannover), Markus Deibler (TG Biberach), Steffen Deibler (TG Biberach),
Stefan Herbst (SSV Leutzsch), Christian Kubusch (SC Magdeburg), Helge
Meeuw (SG Frankfurt), Thomas Rupprath (SC Empor Rostock 2000), Jens
Schreiber (Wfr. 98 Hannover), Benjamin Starke (SG Neukölln).