Oliver Zeidler Continues Swimming-to-Rowing Pipeline With Men’s Single Sculls Gold

Eight years after he stopped swimming competitively to try out rowing, Germany’s Oliver Zeidler won Olympic gold in the men’s single sculls on Saturday in Paris.

The 6-foot-8 Zeidler came from a family of rowers — his aunt, Judith Zeidler, is an Olympic gold and bronze medalist herself — but he preferred swimming growing up. He started swimming at age 7 and won a silver medal as part of Germany’s 4×100 freestyle relay at the 2014 European Junior Championships, splitting 51.09 on the anchor leg in prelims.

But after missing out on qualifying times for the Rio Olympics (100 free: 48.99 ‘A’ cut, 50.70 ‘B’ cut), Zeidler gave single scull rowing a chance in September of 2016 while at the regatta course where his sister was training. He had used the indoor rowing machine as part of his swimming training, so the transition was natural.

“Until spring 2017, I combined rowing with my swimming training, but rowing became more fun as I saw significant progress, something I had missed in swimming over the years,” Zeidler recalled. “At my first indoor rowing competition in spring 2017, rowing well under six minutes and beating an Olympic champion from the 2012 Olympics, I realized that I might have a chance to make it into the team in a big boat and go to the Olympics — an opportunity that had eluded me in 2016 as a swimmer.”

Less than a year after giving up swimming in favor of rowing, Zeidler won the men’s heavyweight indoor race at the 2017 World Games. It was the start of a meteoric rise through the sport that has seen him capture world titles in the single sculls in 2019, 2022, and 2023. On Saturday, the 28-year-old added Olympic gold to his medal collection with a dominant victory in 6:37.57, more than five seconds ahead of Yauheni Zalaty across the 2000-meter race. It marked Germany’s first medal in the event since 2000.

Zeidler isn’t the first athlete to have success as both a swimmer and rower. Two-time U.S. Olympic swimmer Betsy Mitchell totaled three Olympic medals at the Summer Games in 1984 and 1988 — including individual silver in the 100 backstroke (1:02.63) in Los Angeles — before taking up rowing while coaching at Dartmouth College. Mitchell went on represent the U.S. at the 1994 World Championships in the women’s double scull. She now serves as athletic director at Caltech in Pasadena, California.