(ATR) German sport mourns the death of Roland Baar, a bronze and silver medalist at the Olympics as well as a five time world champion.
Baar was killed last weekend in a car accident in Germany. No other details were available.
Baar is survived by wife Kathrin and two children.
Baar rowed for Germany from 1989 to 1996 as an oarsman on the eights boat. He won world championships as well as a bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics and silver in Atlanta in 1996.
From 1999 to 2004 Baar was a member of the IOC Athletes Commission, which came with a seat on the IOC.
During his term he served as a member of the Olympic Program commission.
After the IOC, Baar continued to represent athlete interests as a member of the Presidium of the DOSB.
"The sudden and early death of Roland Baar deeply affects us", said Alfons Hörmann, President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation. He says Baar "decisively shaped German and international sport".
"Our sympathy goes above all to his family, his friends and the German Rowing Association. Roland Baar was always a fair athlete, who also enjoyed the respect of his competitors," said Hörmann.
The German Rowing Federation remembers Baar as one of the greats of the sport.
"We commemorate Roland Baar as a great but humble personality with great respect and appreciation."
From 2012, Baar served as the ombudsman of the German National Anti-Doping Agency.
"Roland Baar was an important competitor for clean sport," said the German agency in its tribute.
He was the 1998 recipient of the Thomas Keller award named after the founder of international rowing federation FILA.
Baar enjoyed a successful professional career as one of the world’s experts on internal combustion engines. He received a doctorate in mechanical engineering in 1996 and until 2006 worked for VW. At the time of his death he was a professor at the Technical University of Berlin.
Baar was a proponent of the proper use of diesel engines as one of a number of transportation modalities among which heincluded electrically powered vehicles.
Reported by Ed Hula.
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