NASKE Tim Ole

General
HEIGHT AND FEELING
At 183 centimetres he is one of the shorter rowers on the German men's team. "Yes, I'm much smaller than everyone else. This makes my stroke a little shorter than others, but it also means I can move faster. And because I bring less mass into the boat, there is less movement back and forth in the boat. I compensate for my shorter height quite well. I am mentally very strong, I am strong technically and can cope well in different conditions. And if you want to be among the best in the world, you also need a good 'feeling' for rowing. You can't just apply force to propel the boat. That's why people who are fast on an ergometer aren't necessarily fast on the water. It is difficult to learn, it is a matter of feeling. I've always been relatively good at this, because I couldn't rely on strength. I had to use the resources that were available to me." (taz.de, 22 Sep 2017)

CONSIDERING RETIREMENT
He said that he considered retiring from the sport after missing out on selection to compete at the 2018 World Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He was the German national champion in single sculls at the time, but missed out on selection to Oliver Zeidler, who finished ahead of Ole Naske at the World Cup event in Lucerne prior to the world championships. "Not going to the world championships [in 2018] hurt. Of course there was a moment when I asked myself if I should continue to compete. We invest so much time and effort into our sport and if it makes you unhappy in the end, of course you question why you do it. But some time ago, I developed a dream to become Olympic champion. And I can't become an Olympic champion if I give up, so I didn't." (abendblatt.de, 29 Mar 2019; Team Deutschland YouTube channel, 28 Mar 2019)

U23 WORLD TITLE CONSOLATION
He put his university studies on hold to train full-time in the hope of competing at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, but he was ultimately not selected to compete in Rio. He described it as a "great disappointment", but said he had an agreement with his coach that if he missed out on Olympic selection in 2016, he would focus on the U23 world championships being held the same month as the Games in Rio. He went on to win single sculls gold at the U23 world championships, calling it an "excellent consolation" after missing out on Olympic selection. (mopo.de, 01 Sep 2016)