Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Wolfen, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
About Christian Gille
- Christian Gille (born 6 January 1979 in Wolfen) is a German flatwater canoeist who has competed since the mid-1990s. A junior world champion (C-4 1000 m) in 1993, he won two senior world championship gold medals with Thomas Zereske in the C-2 200 m sprint in 1997 and 1998.
- They also competed at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, placing fifth in the C-2 500 m final. In 2002 Gille won the only C-1 world championship medal of his career.
- He crossed the line in fourth place in the C-1 200 m final in Seville, Spain, but was later awarded the bronze medal after Ukrainian Dmytro Sablin tested positive for cannabis.
- Of more significance for the future however was the formation that year of a new C-2 partnership with 19-year-old Tomasz Wylenzek.
- They finished third in the European Championships and seventh in the C-2 500 m in Seville. Two years later they won a surprise gold medal in the C-2 1000m.
- Gille wore a black armband in memory of his former partner Thomas Zereske who had died earlier that summer. In 2005 Gille and Wylenzek completely dominated the C-2 event.
- A clean sweep of medals (200 m, 500 m and 1000 m) at the European Championships in Poznan, Poland, in May was followed by two golds (500m and 1000m) at the World Championships in Zagreb. 2006 proved a disappointment after the highs of the previous two years.
- Replaced by Stefan Holtz and Robert Nuck as Germany's C-2 500 m representatives, they were therefore unable to defend their European and world titles over that distance.
- They also lost their other titles in competition, coming away with just two silver medals at the major championships (European C-2 1000 m and world C-2 200 m), compared with the five golds of 2005. Gille won two more Olympic medals at Beijing in 2008 with a silver in the C-2 1000 m and a bronze in the C-2 500 m events. Gille is a member of the Leipzig club.
- He is 1.84 m (6 ft 0 in) tall and weighs 87 kilograms (192 lb).
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