Name Peter Niehusen | Role Olympic athlete | |
Peter Niehusen, PhD, (born July 15, 1951, in Luebeck, Germany) is, worldwide, the only sportsman winning international medals as a cox and as a rower. He won 2 Gold and 3 Bronze at European and World Championships as well as Olympic Games in Montreal 1976. He coxed the Eight from Ratzeburg to European Gold in 1965, and the first Deutschland Achter in 1966 to World Gold. He had to leave his coxing seat because he could not maintain his weight at the required 50 kg any longer.
In 1973 he returned to the Deutschland Achter – as a rower. This Eight came in 5th place in Moscow and terminated Niehusens ambitions for the Eight. From 1974 to 1976 he and his partner Ralph Kubail in the coxless pair joined Johann Faerber (Gold Olympics 1972, in the so-called Bulls-Four) in the Coxed Four with a different 4th men each year. In 1974 it was Peter Michael Kolbe, the famous Single Sculler. In 1975 it was Dieter Knief, and in 1976 it was Siegfried Fricke. This boat won three consecutive Bronze Medals, only being beaten by East Germany and Russia.
Peter Niehusen was Team Captain of the German Rowing Team.
Peter Niehusen worked in the cigarette industry for almost 20 years – being a member of the Management Board of Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken. Later on he worked and lived in Henley-on-Thames, UK, for 3 years. Nowadays Peter Niehusen lives in Hamburg as a consultant in Sports Marketing.