Career
Hein qualified for the men"s 400 m freestyle at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, by finishing second behind his teammate Heiko Hell from the Olympic trials, in an A-standard entry time of 3:51.53. Hein missed out a spot for the eight-man final, as he placed tenth out of 47 swimmers in the morning"s preliminary heats, lowering his entry time to 3:49.66. In the 1500 m freestyle, Hein finished twelfth overall on the morning"s preliminaries by exactly one second ahead of Japan"s Takeshi Matsuda with a time of 15:15.42.
At the 2006 European Aquatics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Hein swept the two spots for Germany, as he placed second behind Thomas Lurz by a single second margin in the men"s 5 km open water race, clocking at 56:01.1.
He also picked up a bronze medal in the 10 km race, but finished behind Maarten van der Weijden of the Netherlands by approximately three seconds, in a time of 1:58:16.6.