| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
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| Born | 11 February 1981 | ||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Rowing | ||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Matthias Hobein (born 11 February 1981) is a German lightweight rower. He won a gold medal at the 2003 World Rowing Championships in Milan with the lightweight men's eight. [1]
Lightweight rowing is a category of rowing where limits are placed on the maximum body weight of competitors. One might think the rationale would be that heavier people have a disadvantage but the actual rationale is that larger, taller people have a significant physical advantage and tend to dominate the sport. A lightweight category gives average sized individuals the ability to compete against their peers, but rowers who are tall and thin generally have an advantage over those who are shorter but broader. According to the International Rowing Federation (FISA), this weight category was introduced "to encourage more universality in the sport especially among nations with less statuesque people".
The 2003 World Rowing Championships were World Rowing Championships that were held from 25 August to 1 September 2003 on the lake Idroscalo at Milan, Italy. The international rowing season usually ends with the World Championship regatta. Apart from the Olympic Games this is the most prestigious international rowing event, attracting over 1000 rowers.
Milan is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city in Italy after Rome, with the city proper having a population of 1,372,810 while its metropolitan city has a population of 3,245,308. Its continuously built-up urban area has a population estimated to be about 5,270,000 over 1,891 square kilometres. The wider Milan metropolitan area, known as Greater Milan, is a polycentric metropolitan region that extends over central Lombardy and eastern Piedmont and which counts an estimated total population of 7.5 million, making it by far the largest metropolitan area in Italy and the 54th largest in the world. Milan served as capital of the Western Roman Empire from 286 to 402 and the Duchy of Milan during the medieval period and early modern age.
