Ronald Rauhe

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Olympic medal record
Bronze	2000 Sydney	K-2 500 m
Gold	2004 Athens	K-2 500 m

Ronald Rauhe (born 3 October 1981 in Berlin) is an athlete from Germany who competes in flatwater canoeing. He has won ten world championship gold medals in the Kayak discipline, more than any other kayak racer currently in competition.

Rauhe was selected for the 1997 World Junior Championships in Lahti, Finland at the age of just fifteen years nine months. Competing against paddlers up to three years older he won two medals - gold in the K4 500m and silver in the individual (K1) 500m, an unprecedented achievement for a fifteen-year-old. After winning more three gold medals at the next edition of the world junior championships in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1999 he stepped up to the senior German national team. Still aged only seventeen, he enjoyed immediate success, taking the bronze medal in the men's K-1 200m World Championship final the same year.

At the Sydney Olympics in 2000 Rauhe won a bronze medal in the K-2 500m with team-mate Tim Wieskötter.

Since then the Rauhe/Wieskötter partnership has enjoyed unrivalled success, winning the major K-2 500m race every year (five world titles and the 2004 Olympic gold). The pair have also won six straight European championships over 500m.

Rauhe also dominated the K-1 200m individual sprint, winning three consecutive golds in both the world and European championships before losing out to Spain's Carlos Pérez in 2005.

If Rauhe's rivals hoped this marked the beginning of a decline in the German's fortunes they were to be disappointed. In 2006 Rauhe was back on top form and won more titles than ever before. At the European Championships in Račice, Czech Republic he won three gold medals, retaining his K2 500m title, regaining the K1 200m crown from Pérez and winning the K2 200m for the first time in his career.

These three victories were repeated at the World Championships in Szeged, Hungary. Rauhe's dominance was best illustrated by his victory in the K2 200m final in a race that was scheduled just twenty minutes after his K1 final (and against a field of rested opponents none of whom had competed in the earlier race),