Jüri Jaanson

Jaanson was born in Tartu, and had to overcome a particularly challenging childhood, brought on by a severe case of pneumonia at the age of 2. Doctors gave antibiotics which saved him, but which also left him almost completely deaf. He attended a school for the deaf until he obtained a primitive hearing aid at the age of 12, allowing him to attend a regular school. Still, being a loner, he struggled with fitting in. At Tartu University, when a coach introduced him to rowing, he took to it passionately, in fact so passionately that he left the university to focus on rowing.^[2] He wears hearing aids on a regular basis and was also seen wearing them during his rowing competitions.

He became World Champion in Tasmania 1990 in the single sculls event. In 1995, he won the Diamond Challenge Sculls (the premier singles sculls event) at the Henley Royal Regatta, rowing for the Parnu Rowing Club.^[3]

In 2004 at age 38, he won an Olympic silver medal in the single sculls event at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.^[4] In Beijing 2008 he won his second Olympic silver medal, this time in the double sculls event with Tõnu Endrekson^[5] and became Estonia's oldest Olympic medal winner with the age of 42 years, 10 months and two days.^[6] He is a member of the SK Pärnu rowing club located in Pärnu. In 2007, Jaanson became the oldest rower ever to win a World Cup event at the age of 41 in Amsterdam.^[7]

Jaanson is among four athletes to compete in rowing at six Olympics, with Romanian Elisabeta Lipă in 2004, Canadian Lesley Thompson (cox) in 2008, and Australian James Tomkins.

On 18 November 2010, Jaanson announced ending his career. In July 2011 he was awarded with the Thomas Keller Medal, the highest honor in rowing.^[8]

He is also a member of the Estonian parliament, the Riigikogu for the Reform Party.

• 1988 Seoul – 8th Single sculls
• 1992 Barcelona – 5th Single sculls
• 1996 Atlanta – 18th Single sculls
• 2000 Sydney – 6th Single sculls
• 2004 Athens –   Single sculls
• 2008 Beijing –   Double sculls (with Tõnu Endrekson)

• 1989 Bled, Yugoslavia –   Single sculls
• 1990 Tasmania, Australia –   Single sculls
• 1991 Vienna, Austria – 12th Single sculls
• 1995 Tampere, Finland –   Single sculls
• 1997 Aiguebelette, France – 13th Single sculls
• 1998 Cologne, Germany – 14th Single sculls
• 1999 St. Catharines, Canada – 7th Single sculls
• 2001 Luzerne, Switzerland – 7th Single sculls
• 2003 Milan, Italy – 7th Single sculls
• 2005 Gifu, Japan –   Quadruple sculls (with Andrei Jämsä, Tõnu Endrekson and Leonid Gulov)
• 2007 Munich, Germany –   Double sculls (with Tõnu Endrekson)

• 2008 Marathon, Greece –   Quadruple Sculls (with Tõnu Endrekson, Andrei Jämsä and Allar Raja)

Overall wins

• Single sculls: 1990, 1995
• Quadruple sculls: 2005
• Double sculls: 2007

• List of athletes with the most appearances at Olympic Games

• Jüri Jaanson at World Rowing  
• Jüri Jaanson at Olympedia  
• Jüri Jaanson at Olympics.com
• Jüri Jaanson at the Estonian Olympic Committee (archived)
• Jüri Jaanson at ESBL (in Estonian)
• World Rowing Magazine August 2007
• World Rowing Magazine Athlete of the Month March 2010