Preparing for Tokyo with Offenbach Harbor Island in the background. Marcus Klemp paddling up the main road in front of the RG Undine site.
© Invitation
After a few final training sessions at Offenbach, rower Markus Klemp of RG Unden Offenbach is headed to the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. The top five are his goal.
Offenbach – RG Undine Offenbach coach and German Paralympic rower Jochen Weber speaks in high regard from Marcus Klemp after an intense training session on the Main. “Marcus realized the connection between movement and quality of life early in his life. He works incredibly intensely on his physical disability, straining muscles, stretching them, sometimes with excruciating pain. That’s great. But he also knows he’s going to end up in a wheelchair if he doesn’t. That all the time.”
Webber adds: “Marcus’ diagnosis was that at the age of 30 he would be stuck in a wheelchair. He is now 39 and will be participating in the Paralympic Games for the second time since 2008. He is torturing himself like hell in every unit. For him, the high-performance sport with big goals is Healthy sport, of course.”
Markus Klemp, who only moved from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to RG Onden in Offenbach in February, currently has his second residence after Ribbnitz Damgarten with the Klingenberg rowing family in Mülheim, speaks with Weber admiration. The 39-year-old Klimp went through a stressful phase at home club RSV Ribnitz-Damgarten, and since his training with the Bundeswehr took him to the barracks in Hammelburg in Lower Franconia, a move to a club in the south was an obvious choice. Because of Weber, Klemp chose rowing company Undine Offenbach. “There was practically no alternative. Jochen Weber has a lot of experience in para-sports, he is an excellent coach for me. He sees everything in such detail and fine that no other coach does. He has the picture of the perfect stroke in front of his eyes. If he wants to improve something, there is practically no alternative. He doesn’t give up, but always keeps an eye on the athlete’s limits and limits. I have to trust him, I can totally do it.”
In the weeks after successfully qualifying with Webber in Gavirate, Italy, Klemp was released from service with the goal of competing in the Paralympics. “The first professional Paralympic rower in Germany,” Weber jokes.
And so the two traveled to Tokyo on August 19 after another training camp in Brisach am Rhein with physiotherapist Thomas Friese. “It must be stupid if Marcus does not reach the final via replay. We have stabilized the performance over the past few weeks,” Webber asserts with confidence. A medal in the starting class PR1 would be a small sensation, as the top 4 athletes show From Ukraine, Russia, England and Australia faster and stronger.With a target time of 9:35/9:40min over 2,000m, at least a fifth place would be realistic for Clemp.In three years at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris, Weber adds: “We want to be Within the top four.” Clem nodded. The coach and athlete agree again.
From a sporting point of view, this is always true, but not with the aim of August 24, the opening ceremony. Webber doesn’t want to go, that’s nothing, but Klemp does. He actually missed it in Beijing in 2008 and wanted to keep up his strength. It was too arduous for him to walk at the time, and he was not yet ready for a round of the stadium in a wheelchair. It would be conceivable for him now.
What will happen after the final Paralympic hope on August 29? Just two days later, Klemp, Weber, and Friese came home. Klemp wants to spend a night in Mühlheim, then drive the 700 kilometers to the Baltic Sea in the car. “I want to see my own apartment for the first time in four months,” he laughs. On September 7, he has to return to the German armed forces, and then to Berlin for five months until the mid-semester exam in February. The address of the barracks makes you sit up and take notice: Regattastraße in Grünau, right on Dahme. “It couldn’t be better. I can train every day after work. We have already organized a coach and a boat. Coach Webber will be in Berlin again and again to prepare his athlete to achieve the long-term goal of Paris 2024.”
Even then, after completing his apprenticeship, Klemp still wanted to find a common place for himself and his girlfriend who lives in Chemnitz. “My dream city will be Rostock, I’m just a fish head,” says Klimp. But Offenbach and Undine as a conceivable club, too.
Webber stops as national coach
Jochen Weber has been the coach of Paralympic athletes for the German Rowing Association since 2013. The Tokyo Paralympics is his last event as a national coach. The 59-year-old New Isenburg man reported that he canceled his contract on August 31, the day of his return flight from Tokyo. There have been different views with the association on how to develop competitive teams, says the local coach at RG Undine in Offenbach. Webber doesn’t want to go into details yet. In Tokyo, he takes care of only two athletes, Marcus Klemp and Silvia Bell-Stepat (Hamburg). On 2 and 4, in the so-called team boats, German athletes did not qualify for the Paralympics. a program
by Holger Abel
Ready for the Tokyo Paralympics. Coaches Yoshin Weber, Marcus Klemp and physical therapist Thomas Friese (from left) at Undine.
© Contact
From overweight teenagers to Paralympic novices
Cerebral Palsy: 39-year-old Marcus Klemp has had this health problem since birth. They are movement disorders and stiffness of the muscles of the legs. “That’s why there was no option for me to play football, for example,” says Klemp. At the age of 14 he was an “overweight teenager” who loved fishing. He did so at his home in Ribnitz-Damgarten on the Recknitz River, near the rowing boat harbor.
RSV coach Gunther Muller approached him at one point. Mueller read an article on inclusion and blasphemy. Climb tried his hand first on the accelerometer, made friends in the club, rowed on the water, lost weight, was able to run better and move better. “That was really good for me. At first, I only had ideas about healthy sports, and that there are also semi-competitions in rowing, and it just wasn’t clear to me,” says Climp.
In the summer of 2001, he competed in the Summer Regatta in Berlin for the first time, celebrating four victories in four matches. At the world cup premiere of Paralympic Rowers in Seville in 2002, Klemp was still “paying a lot of money” for a four-man with a rider under his then sportbike, Helmut Reinas, with a laugh. At the 2003 World Cup in Milan, Klemp and his colleagues already won the silver, and in 2007 in Oberschleissheim near Munich the gold – the greatest success of his career. At the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, he finished fourth with the Germany national team. In 2013, Klimp won the silver medal at the World Cup under national coach Jochen Webber in second place in Cheongju (South Korea).
Now, after moving to RG Undine Offenbach in February of this year and successfully qualifying in Gavirate (Italy), the Bundeswehr apprentice is on the verge of having his second Paralympics in one. a program
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