History of the Club de Remo Teutonia

The history of this centenary club, dean of the Argentinean-German sports institutions, began by mid of 1890 year, when some German-origin people, members at that time of the Buenos Aires Rowing Club, decided to found their own rowing club for the German community.

Teutonia was the fourth born rowing club in Argentina and the oldest of the Argentinean-German community clubs.
The first social headquarters – a wide place for boats and dressing rooms - was placed at the corner formed by the Tigre and Luján rivers. In 1902, a wooden construction typical from the Tigre zone was added which was replaced in 1932 by the solid and elegant building where the Argentine Naval Prefecture, Delta zone, has nowadays its headquarters.

Concerning the social and sport scope of the Argentine-German community, along its first 50 years the Teutonia Rowing Club was considered one the three best clubs of the country.

After the 2nd World War, on February 8th, 1946, the Teutonia Rowing Club was confiscated by the enemy, but thanks to the determined action of all the Argentine rowing clubs, it was returned to its members on January 1st, 1947. The Club recovered soon, and by the end of the 1960’s the number of members had climbed to 1400, placing it among the leading clubs in the country.

Due to the impossibility to extend the sporting activities in the Tigre location —where the headquarters were situated— because of the high contamination of the Tigre river and the highly increased boat traffic which difficult the rowing practice, in 1976 it was decided to sell the Tigre headquarters and the Atlantis island on the Sarmiento river. It was also decided to buy a 9 Ha. land property placed 10 Km up the river, near La Ñata Village, on the Luján river coast, first Delta section. To get to the club, there are easy and fast ways from Panamericana highway, coming either from Benavidez or Tigre locations. There are also some important countries near the club, such as Nordelta, San Isidro Labrador and Villanueva among others.

The moving’s club was in 1978 and later, in 1990, the new social headquarters were opened. The 1900 m2 building included restaurant, ballroom, dressing rooms, gym, sleeping rooms and 100 yachting points and others. Besides rowing as an entertainment, competition, entertainment rowing and a rowing school, the club could now bring its members the possibility to practice other sports activities like yachting, golf, tennis, swimming, volley ball, football, etc. and enjoy a place for barbecues (asado) within a beautiful park.
Along the 117 years history of the club, we can mention as outstanding members, the Founder President, Mr. Jacob Kade (1890-91); Mr. G. Rodolfo Thoelke (1945-51) for his efforts in obtaining the club’s restitution and
Mr. Ricardo Mingramm, the only member who was President through five periods (1972-75 / 1975-78 / 1987-90 / 1993-96 / 1996-99). During his Presidential terms, the club moved to its new site and was restructured.

SPORTS ACTIVITIES

Since its beginning and up to the present, the Teutonia’s Rowing Club reached many national and international glorious triumphs.

Some of the most well known triumphs to mention were the “Century Cup”, a regata in 1910 along the Luján River celebrating the 100 years of the “May Revolution”, and the classification obtained by the 8+ rower’s Teutonia’s boat in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

In 1971, Claudio and Alfredo Krotsch won the Plated Medal in the Cali, Colombian Pan-American Games.
Since 1990, the Teutonia’s Rowing Club has obtained its mayor international achievements. In 1992, in Barcelona, Teutonia presented its first boat. Later, in 2000 year, in Sydney, two boats were presented and finally, in 2004, in Athens, three boats were presented. It is important to mention that all the boats’ crews were exclusively formed by rowers of the club.

Some rowers who won in the last years either gold, plate and bronze medals in the history of the club are: Ulf Lienhard, Walter Naneder, Marcos Morales, Diego López and Horacio Sicilia.

In the national level, as from 1999, the 8+ (eight-rower) boats from Teutonia won all the Argentinean Rowing Championships till 2006, besides winning in other categories.

In 2001, the six boats presented by the club won national qualifications. In 2002, five Argentinean Championships were won and – for the first time – one of them was the Single Senior A. During this time, the club also obtained the Argentinean Naval League Premium for being the most successful one because of the 40 official races won and the Argentinean Rowing Association Honor Premium for obtaining the most highly punctuation in all the presented races.

All these triumphs are based on the constant work of the Club’s Rowing School which – at present – counts with 70 members and trains all the enthusiastic people of this nice and healthy sporT.