Robert Seifert
Robert Seifert ( born January 31, 1988 in Dresden ) is a German Shorttracker and Junior World Champion.
Seifert began his career as a figure skater and moved in 2000 to the short track speed skating. In this sport, it was announced in 2006 Junior World Champion and starts since the German national team. Due to several injuries in the ankle had Dresdner twice interrupting his career, both times secured by the comebacks but again a place in the team. As one of six German Short trackers Seifert took part in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
- 4.1 World Cup wins
Career
Childhood and rise to the national team (until 2006)
Seifert began at the age of four years with the competitive sports and practiced initially both figure skating and jumping out of water. After a year he decided to figure skating on which he focused on from there. For seven years, his childhood, he played figure skating competitions and secured at this time at youth level several national titles. In retrospect, the Dresdner these years is considered a foundation for his later successes as Shorttracker because he adopted as figure skater the necessary conditional and coordinative abilities and developed a good feel for skates and ice. Problems with the coaches meant that the then seventh-grader in 2000 moved to the short track speed skating. The first time in the new sport that chose Seifert also because of their power Emphasizes awareness, he now referred to as:
" With the change of the sport, I found myself in a whole new sporting environment again, which just so bursting of things that should be discovered: a new circle of friends, other training times, exciting competitions and ... no more ballet classes. "
Even as a youth reach Seifert various successes in the short track speed skating, he was already about German than 15 -year-old junior runner-up. After more good results at national and international level, he was taken early in the season 2004/ 05 the Junior National Team. At the European Youth Olympic Festival in 2005 he reached twice - over 1000 meters and in the relay - second place and thus a silver medal. Only a year later, Seifert hitherto greatest success; at the Junior World Cup in Miercurea Ciuc, he secured the first German the title of Junior World Champion over 500 meters. He benefited from shrub learning other athletes, in which he nearly fell also. Behind the South Korean medalists Lee Jung -su and Kim Jae -han and the Frenchman Maxime Chataigner he finished also ranked fourth in the all around, where he missed the bronze medal by only three points. After these good results explained the German national coach Jürgen Denhardt, Seifert was first substitutes for the Olympic Winter Games in February, should fail one of the nominated athletes. Although this did not come, the athlete was used in the World Cup, which was held shortly after the Olympics in the U.S. Minneapolis. There he was part of the German relay that reached the sixth.
Injuries and comebacks (2006-2009)
At age 18, Robert Seifert was added to the A-National Team. For his first missions in short track speed skating World Cup were connected, which he denied in October 2006 in Changchun, China. In a well-staffed 500 -meter race at Dresdner immediately reached the twelfth place among more than 30 participants, only one place ahead of him, placed the best German Tyson Heung. A week later won the German squadron with Seifert the B-final and thus finished fifth.
In the third World Cup station in the Canadian Chicoutimi Seifert fell in the quarterfinals of the 500 -meter race hard without outside influence and suffered a multiple fracture of the ankle. He was then flown to Dresden and surgery at the University Hospital in his hometown. After this injury, which meant the end of the season for the athletes and within the DESG had a safety talk a result, some media were afraid the career end of the first 18 -year-olds. He himself expressed it:
" Now everything is in the right tracks and I hope that maybe everything will be good, but not as fast. Sure, it's incredibly bitter for me to be suddenly standing in such an important season with good shape with nothing. But that's fate. "
While Tyson Heung could become the first German one overall World Cup in the 2006/07 season, Seifert was again in several weeks ongoing rehabilitation training. After the season he was able to return back into competitive sports, although the screws were removed after one year in December 2007, again from the ankle. Previously, in October 2007, he had given at the first World Cup race of the winter his comeback, after all, directly to the quarter-finals. Overall, however, it is not followed up on the initial success of the previous winter, so he finished the season ahead of the national and international championships in February 2008.
In the summer of Seifert moved again while jogging to an ankle compression, for which he had to take a one-week break from training. So he came again in training deficit and did not qualify for the first World Cup of the season. In the further course of the winter he managed not initially make the leap into the five-man German squad, but competed in the continental Star Class, where he scored good results. Since the last World Cup of the year a home World Cup for the German team was - he found in Seifert's home town of Dresden place - the team was allowed to nominate six athletes instead of the usual five athletes. This extra space was Robert Seifert, who thereby returned after more than a year's break in February 2009, again in the World Cup. In Dresden he began exclusively over 500 meters, where he reached the 14th place in the season, which was third, he was only substitute. Seifert described his performance at the first aligned in Germany World Cup as a positive surprise, but he did not feel right still in good shape. The pre-Olympic season, who describes the athlete as a " sobering " ended for him with the German vice-champion title.
Qualify for the Olympics (2009)
Before the Olympic season 2009/10, for the coached the German team as early as April 2009, Robert Seifert at the target to assert themselves as an integral part of the team and injury-free through. Due to the Olympic Games in Vancouver, the first competitions started in comparison to the previous winters quite early; the first World Cup in Beijing in September was already on the program. Both for this and for the next World Cup in Seoul Dresdner for the single race drew a negative conclusion, he was able to qualify in any single race for the quarter- finals. With the season he managed, however, seventh and sixth place, although he had not previously been used for two years in the World Cup in one season. This he saw as a good sign for the upcoming in the next two races Olympic qualification.
The last two World Cup stops - also because Olympia was the number of World Cups been reduced from six to four - in North America were also the only two ways to qualify for the Olympic Winter Games. In Montreal, Canada, Seifert resigned over 500 meters from the third of seven laps and was 38th in the relay, it was enough in the B final for the eighth. These results were not sufficient to meet the Olympic standard. This abolished the Dresden during subsequent competition in Marquette, where he was over 500 meters to the B final and there with a fifth place alongside his best ever World Cup result also set a new German record. During the seven rounds Seifert steadily improved and made four times a new personal best twice and a new German record, which eventually amounted to 41.258 seconds. In the quarterfinals, he benefited from the disqualification of the U.S. Olympic medalist Apolo Anton Ohno, who had previously disabled it. In the overall World Cup this season, he finished by this fifth to 14th place. Also in the season came with a fourth place qualifying for the Olympics, while Seifert was not used in the A-final of rotation reasons. Immediately after the World Cup thanked the athlete on his website the coach of the German team, the Canadian Éric Bédard, who had brought new training methods in the team.
On 17 December 2009 Seifert was nominated alongside 43 other athletes and as one of six short trackers from DOSB for the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
From 2010
In 2010, Seifert was one of four athletes who could win at the World Championships in Sofia in the 5000m relay competition, the first world championship medal for the German short track speed skating at all. In the 2011 season he was part of the season, which in Dresden 's first World Cup victory of the season scored and won silver at the World Championships in Sheffield.
On December 2, 2012, he won in Nagoya, Japan on his second 500 -meter World Cup races ( and the first in an individual event ) in front of the favorite Charles Hamelin of Canada. This was also the first individual victory of a German Short Trackers in the World Cup.
Status in the German team
After Robert Seifert 2006 Junior World Champion had become the 500 - meter track as the first German in the year, he was called " German short-track Hope" as well as " the largest German short track speed skating talent ", especially after the injury in November 2006. In Commenting on this article expressed the father of the Short trackers:
"Particularly noteworthy, however, is the fact that so many people have tried to Robert. My biggest concern was initially that he was celebrated last season as JWM in Dresden and this time is forgotten and abandoned. However, to my great delight it came differently than expected. "
Due to several enforced breaks Seifert was not used between 2007 and 2009 in the World Cup season. When he returned early in the season 2009/10 in the solid five-man World Cup team, Sebastian praus, Paul Herrmann and Tyson Heung had established as "standard runner" in the relay. On the fourth position, Seifert alternated with Robert Becker and Torsten Kröger. In addition, Dresdner, who describes himself as a sprinter, meanwhile, used almost exclusively in 500 - meter race, ie the shortest distance.
Private
Seifert first attended a sports promoting primary school in Dresden and then moved on the sports high school in Dresden. Because of the time-consuming training, he reached a stretching of the secondary school for three years, so he took rather than after twelve after 13 years graduated from high school in July 2007. As of August this year, he completed a two year training for notary employees; the certificates for this occupation he received in June 2009. A month later he began the military service of the sports promotion group of the Bundeswehr in Frankenberg.
Balance sheet in the World Cup
Shown are the placements in the individual Ratings. Since then, in the season 2006/ 07, the all-round World Cup (a kind of overall World Cup ) was abolished, there are only discipline World Cups for the individual routes.
- Race: Number of races participated in Operation / Number of races conducted
- Points: Points to the race won
- Place: placing at the end of the World Cup season in the respective discipline rating