Roland Baar

Roland Baar was a top rower for West Germany, winning a silver medal in the eights at the 1996 Olympics, after having won a bronze in 1992 at Barcelona. Baar was a five-time gold medalist at the World Championships in the eights, winning titles with West Germany, and then Germany, in 1989-91, 1993, and 1995. Baar became a member of the Athletes Commission of the IOC and in 1999 was selected as an Athletes Member of the IOC, serving until 2004.

Baar studied mechanical engineering at Leibniz University Hannover earning a doctorate. He later worked in the automotive industry, first at Volkswagen and then at Voith AG, where he worked in R&D and helped them develop their turbocharger business. He later worked as a lecturer at Leibniz University Hannover, becoming an honorary professor there in 2009. In 2011 he became a professor in the Department of International Combustion Engines at TU Berlin. In 2018, he died in a car accident when his car crashed into a tree.