Men's Champ 2x: Germans Row Away from a Global Field

German Scullers Marc Weber (L) and Jonas Gelsen (R) were all smiles after their HOCR triumph Saturday

It has been a weekend of firsts for Frankfurter Rudergesellschaft Germania’s Marc Weber and Jonas Gelsen. Rowing in their first Head of the Charles on their first visit to Boston, they won the first-place medal in the men’s championship doubles race on Saturday.

Topping one of the 2022 regatta’s most international fields, Weber and Gelsen bested crews from Poland, France, Canada, England, and the U.S. to finish the course in 15:56.349. (After the race, their time was adjusted to 16:01.349 after a five-second penalty for a green buoy violation was added on.)

“We’re very excited for the outcome of the race,” Weber said. “We struggled a little bit with the steering in the last days, so today we said, ‘Okay, as fast as we can, as good as we can,’ and it paid off really, really well, and we’re really, really happy.”

Weber competed in the double sculls at the Tokyo Olympics with Stephan Krueger and Gelsen became the world champion in the U23 single sculls this year. They have rowed as a double for only a short time, something an observer never would have guessed from their strong performance on the water Saturday afternoon.

At the Riverside checkpoint, the German pair had a one-second lead over the second-place boat, comprised of California Rowing Club’s Sorin Koszyk, one-half of the winning boat from the 2021 men’s doubles race, and Penn AC’s Thomas Phifer, one-half of the winning boat from 2019. Weber and Gelsen’s lead increased to three seconds at Weld, and they were six seconds ahead by the time they steered around the turn at Cambridge Boat Club and went under the Eliot Bridge.

With a sizeable gap between the first- and second-place finishers heading into the last stretch of the race, Weber and Gelsen reached the finish line ten seconds ahead of Koszyk and Phifer and 34 seconds ahead of the third-place boat, which was rowed by Maciej Zawojski of the Polish National Team and Christopher Bak of Next Level Rowing.

Weber called the Head of the Charles “impressive,” and said that it is the biggest regatta he has ever seen. One part of his first HOCR weekend that he especially appreciated was the support shown by the crowds lining the banks of the Charles River after competing in the Tokyo Olympics last year without any spectators.

“Everyone watching, everybody cheering at us… Nobody knows us, but everyone’s cheering for us.” Weber said. “It’s the coolest regatta I think we both have ever been to.”