Andreas Dittmer

Who is Andreas Dittmer?

Andreas Dittmer is a German sprint canoer. The dominant sprint canoer of his generation in 1000 m races, he has won three Olympic and eight world championship gold medals.

Dittmer won his first world championship medal - a bronze - at Paris in 1991 as a member of Germany's C-4 500 m crew. In 1994 he won the C-2 1000 m world championship with Gunar Kirchbach. At the 1996 Olympics the pair won the gold medal in the same event.

Now established as Germany's top canoe sprinter he was selected for the C-1 event and won the C-1 1000 m world title at his first attempt in Dartmouth, Canada in 1997.

At Sydney 2000 he won the C-1 1000 m gold as well as the bronze in the 500 m race. He then won three consecutive C-1 1000 m world titles. In 2003 he also won his first world 500 m title, finally defeating four-time champion Maxim Opalev of Russia to claim his first "double". At the European championships too he won three straight gold medals in his specialist 1000 m event, but had to be content with four consecutive silver medals behind Opalev in the 500 m.