Monash Alumni Karsten Forsterling adds to his Olympic Medal collection

William Zwar

After competing in Rio at the 28^th Olympic Games, Monash Alumni Karsten Forsterling came home with a silver medal.

Karsten Forsterling (far right) with his Silver Medal

 A great achievement for the Monash Graduate, claiming the medal in an average Olympics for the Australian team, who managed just 28 gold medals.

The rower competed in the quad sculls, with teammates Alexander Belonogoff, James McRae and Cameron Girdlestone, falling just 1.15 seconds shy of the gold medal, which was taken out by the German team.

Rio was Forsterling’s second Olympics, after qualifying for London in 2012, where he won his first Olympic medal – a bronze in the quad sculls event.

However prior to London, he was overlooked for selection at the 2004 Athens games, before travelling to Beijing as a reserve in 2008.

Until London, Forsterling had rowed in the men’s eights, however he transferred to the men’s quad scull division after missing out in Beijing.

Outside of the Olympics, the 36 year-old has had an illustrious career, with his first gold in the Rowing world cup coming in the Men’s eight division in 2006, a feat he would repeat in 2008.

His list of achievements includes five gold medals across both the men’s eight and the quad scull divisions in various rowing competitions, including first place in the 2016 World Rowing Cup 2 and World Rowing Cup 3.

However his legacy with Monash started well before that, where he started an engineering degree in 1998.

While Forsterling initially thought architecture would be his niche, bridge design became a passion of Forsterling’s in his undergraduate degree at Monash, a suit he would follow after completing a Bachelor of Engineering in 2001, graduating with First Class honours.

Forsterling became employed at AECOM as a structural engineer in 2003, shortly after graduating. At AECOM, Forsterling is verifying some of the bridges being installed as a part of the Regional RailLink.