Name Stefan Henze | Role Olympic athlete | |
German officials hold press conference following Henze crash - Daily Mail
Stefan Henze (3 May 1981 – 15 August 2016) was a German slalom canoeist who began competing in the sport in the mid-1990s. He won the silver medal in the C-2 event at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens together with Marcus Becker.
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Career
Henze won six medals at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships with a gold (C-2: 2003), four silvers (C-2: 2006, C-2 team: 2003, 2006, 2009), and a bronze (C-2: 2005). He won a gold and two silvers in the C-2 team event at the European Championships.
His father Jürgen Henze is world champion in the C-2 team event from 1975 and his older half-brother Frank Henze is also a canoe slalom racer and multiple world championship medalist.
Death
On 12 August 2016, Henze suffered serious head injuries after a car crash in Rio de Janeiro, where he was a coach during the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, and died three days later. Henze donated his organs. After he died, his heart, his liver and both of his kidneys were transplanted into seriously ill people in a hospital in Rio de Janeiro.