With Jens Kroker from Hamburg, a Paralympic sailor has been elected to the athletes' commission of the World Sailing Association for the first time. The association decided on this innovation at its 2017 annual meeting. With Kroker, it is not only Paralympic sport that has an experienced voice in the commission. The German sailing sport also finally has a representative in the nine-person international committee, which alongside Kroker is Yann Rocherieux (France), SofíBekatorou (Greece), Jo Aleh (New Zealand), Maayan Davidovich (Israel), Juan Ignacio Maegli (Guatemala), Vasilij Zbogar (Slovenia), Sarah Gosling (Great Britain) and LijiXu (China) give a lot of Olympic glamor and represent the interests of their competitive sport.
The German Paralympic team presented Jens Kroker to the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro
Kroker took part in a Paralympic regatt for the first time in 1997, won silver in Sydney in 2000, gold in Qingdao in 2008 and again silver in front of Weymouth in 2012 as well as three world championship titles. Over the years, his fellow sailors in the three-man keelboat Sonar were Tobias Schütz, Siegmund Mainka, Robert Prem and most recently in Rio de Janeiro also the 2.4 m helmsman Lasse Klötzing, who represented the sick Robert Prem. For Klötzing, Kroker gave up the helm and took on the role of tactician and mainsail trimmer.
At the start for Germany at the Paralympics 2016: 2.4 mR helmsman Heiko Kröger (top left), Jens Kroker (top right), Lasse Klötzing (bottom left) and Siegmund Mainka
"I am very honored that the Para World Sailing community has elected me to represent our sport on the Athletes Commission," said Kroker. "I am very happy to have the opportunity to use my experience in competitive sailing to help the sport continue to grow. Our main goal will of course be to achieve the resumption of sailing for the Paralympics in 2024. With the support of the Sailors and World Sailing, I firmly believe that we can do this as a team. " Kroker prevailed against three other candidates from Australia, Brazil and Japan in his election.
At the Paralympics 2016 in Rio as a middleman: Jens Kroker between helmsman Lasse Klötzing and bowman Siegmund Mainka
The 48-year-old business graduate is a member of the North German RegattVerein, the yacht club Berlin-Grünau and the 1st water sports club Lausitzer Seenland. For his Paralympic successes, he has received Germany's highest sports award three times with the Silver Laurel Leaf. When asked what quality gold medalists should have, he once said: "The instinct to be in the right place at the right time."