Now that the business of qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics is pretty much done and dusted, it’s time to get down to race preparation and just a few days after the “Regatta of death” (or more optimistically the “Regatta of Opportunity”) the rowing world returns to the Rotsee in Lucerne for the 2nd World Rowing Cup. As always, I’ll have a look at the entries and give some ideas of who to watch.
M1X
30 scullers
Entries for the World Cup closed before the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta took place and they include a number of athletes who raced at the FOQR. It remains to be seen whether these entries actually appear on the start line.
All eyes will be on Ollie Zeidler of Germany, winner of the 1st World Cup and the European Championships this season, the 2019 World Champion is in imperious form with seemingly only poor conditions being a threat to his dominance.
2nd to Zeidler at both the 2019 World Championships and the 2021 Europeans was Sverri Nielsen of Denmark. The Faroese had a breakthrough year in 2019 achieving his first podium finish of his career at the 2nd World Cup where he won gold. He followed this up with a 2nd gold at World Cup 3 and silver at the World Championships.
Bronze medallist in 2019 was Kjetil Borch of Norway. The 2018 World Champion has had a mixed season so far in 2021, 6th at the European Championships he was 2nd to Zeidler in Zagreb.
One of the biggest names in the M1X field over the past 16 years is Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic. Widely regarded as the greatest single sculler never to win an Olympic Gold medal, he has two Olympic silvers and one bronze to his credit along with twelve World Championship medals and five European titles. He planned to race the M2X at this year’s Europeans but withdrew before racing started. He returned to the M1X at the Zagreb World Cup and finished 5th. The question is, can the 38-year-old still challenge for gold against the new young guns of the M1X field?
Stefanos Ntouskas of Greece booked his place in Tokyo at the European Qualification Regatta. He followed that up a few days later with an excellent 4th place at the European Championships. The 2019 U23 silver medallist is a former lightweight international and raced in the LM4- at the Rio Olympics at the age of 19.
Lithuania seem to be using the World Cup series as an extended selection contest between Saulius Ritter and Mindaugus Griskonis. Lithuania have qualified the boat but not yet decided who will fill the seat. At the 1st World Cup it was Ritter who had the upper hand finishing 4th to Griskonis’s 7th. But, Griskonis is far more experienced in the single having raced at both the Beijing and London Olympics in the boat. They know each other extremely well have won Olympic silver together in Rio. Who will eventually fill the seat for Tokyo remains to be seen.
Pilip Pavukou of Belarus narrowly missed qualification for Tokyo at the FOQR finishing 4th. Whether the 2019 European bronze medallist can get over that disappointment to deliver a good performance in the World Cup will be really tough.
The medallists should come from among this group of scullers. Among the rest of the field there are some interesting athletes to watch out for. Italy have two scullers racing, Simone Martini and Gennaro di Mauro. Martini has been the Italian M1X for the last 3-4 years, but has yet to make an A-Final. Di Mauro is an exciting young sculler, the holder of the junior 2K ergo record he made his senior international debut at the European Championships this year finishing 10th.
John Graves of the USA missed out on the A-Final at the FOQR, the 2nd time he’s suffered the disappointment of the Regatta of death. He raced in the M4X in 2019 finishing 13th.
My picks…Germany gold, Denmark silver, Norway bronze (all a bit predictable….famous last words!)
M2X
19 crews
This promises to be one of the best events at the regatta. It sees the French (Hugo Boucheron and Mattieu Androdias) up against the gold, silver and bronze medallists from 2019. The French are on fire this season. They won in style at the European Championships and drew plaudits for the quality of their sculling, being a lot of people’s choice as crew of the championships.
But, the 2018 World Champions will have their work cut-out in Lucerne. Racing for the first time since 2019 are the Chinese World Champions, Zhiyu Liu and Liang Zhang. Their victory in 2019 was the first time either man had medalled at a championship regatta. It’ll be interesting to see if they can pick-up where they left off in 2019.
Runners-up to the Chinese in 2019 were the Irish, Ronan Byrne and Philip Doyle. Irish rowing is riding high at the moment after a very successful FOQR saw them end up with a total of six boats qualified for Tokyo, their most ever. The Irish double raced at the 2020 Europeans and took the bronze medal (despite Doyle spending most of time in 2020 working as a doctor at Belfast City Hospital).
Bronze medallists in 2019 were Poland (Miroslaw Zietarski and Mateusz Biksup). They were members of the M4X that finished 4th in Rio. Since that bronze medal in Linz they’ve not quite recaptured that medal form with a 4th place at the 2020 Europeans and 5th this season.
Great Britain have entered two doubles in Lucerne. Racing as GBR1 is John Collins and Graeme Thomas. They just missed out on a medal at the 2019 World Championships and then took 3rd at the Europeans this season. Both raced at the Rio Olympics, Thomas in the quad and Collins in the double which both finished 5th. The 2nd GBR boat is Sam Meijer and Jonny Walton. Walton was Collins’ partner at the Rio Olympics and then moved into the quad from 2017 onwards. Meijer makes his senior debut in Lucerne. He’s an outstanding talent and won gold at three consecutive U23 World Championships, in fact in his three years on the U23 team he never lost a race. They will be keen to get as close to their team mates as possible.
Switzerland also have two boats racing on their home waters. Their number one boat is Barnabe Delarze and Roman Roeoesli. They were in the quad at the Rio Olympics and after that they moved into the double winning World Championship silver in 2018 and qualified for Tokyo with a 5th place in 2019. They won silver at the 2020 European Championships and this season took 5th. The 2nd Swiss boat is Kai Schaetzle and Tim Roth, 8th at the Zagreb World Cup.
Another two-entry nation are the Netherlands. Their top boat is Melvin Twellaar and Stef Broenink. The 2019 U23 silver medallists have had a good start to their senior careers, winning the 2020 European Championships and taking silver in Varese.
The 2nd NED boat, Guus Mollee & Wietse Morreau, are both making their senior debuts after competing at the 2019 Junior World Championships.
Other crews to watch are the Romanians (Ioan Prundeanu & Marian-Florian Enache – 6th at the 2019 Worlds and 5th at the 2020 Europeans), the Czech Republic (Jakub Podrazil & Jan Cincibuch – 2nd at the FOQR and 5th at the Zagreb World Cup) and Germany (Stephan Krueger & Marc Weber – 7th at the 2020 Europeans).
My picks……hmmm very tricky, a lot depends on what sort of speed the Chinese have. But, I’m going to pick the French in gold, China in silver and the Netherlands in bronze.
M2-
12 crews
In the absence of the World and European Champions from Croatia, it’ll be the Italians who start as favourites. Matteo Lodo and Giuseppe Vicino were World Champions in the M4- back in 2015 and bronze medallists at the Rio Olympics. As a pair they were World Champions in 2017 and 4th in 2019. In 2020 they won bronze at the Europeans and then were runners-up at the 2021 championships.
One of the most intriguing parts of this event is the inter-nation showdown between two sets of French brothers. Valentin and Theophile Onfroy have been the French pair since 2017 and won World Championship bronze in 2018. In 2019 they finished 6th and qualified the boat for Tokyo. Thibaud and Guillaume Turlan finished 5th at the 2018 U23 Championships before moving to the M4X in 2019. For the 2021 season they moved back into the pair for the European Championships taking 6th place.
Bronze medallists at the European championships this year were Serbia (Martin Mackovic and Milos Vasic) 7th at the 2019 World Championships, Vasic raced at both the Rio and London Olympics.
Great Britain narrowly missed qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics, the first time since 1968 that GB won’t be represented in this boat class. The crew for Lucerne are the nominal spares for the sweep team, Ollie Wilkes and Matt Tarrant. Wilkes makes his senior debut having won silver at the U23 championships in 2017. Tarrant is possibly the most successful British oarsman never to race at the Olympics. He’s won a world championship medal at every championships since 2014 (including gold in the M2+ in 2015).
Romania (Marius-Vasile Cozmiuc & Ciprian Tudosa) were world silver medallists in 2018 but slipped back to 10th at the 2019 Worlds. In 2020 they won the European Championships and took 4th this season.
Also racing in Lucerne are the Spanish (Jaime Canalejo Pazos & Javier Garcia Ordonez) bronze medallists at the 2019 Europeans and 5th in the world in 2019. This season they won bronze at the 1st World Cup.
My picks….Italy gold, Serbia silver, Romania bronze.
M4-
10 crews
Great Britain (Sholto Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Matt Rossiter, Ollie Cook) made a blistering start to the 2021 season. The 2019 world bronze medallists dominated a high-class field at the 2021 European Championships reclaiming the title they won in 2019. They will be keen to back-up that performance in Varese with another dominate row in Lucerne.
In Lucerne they face a strong South African crew (Lawrence Brittain, Kyle Schoonbee, John Smith, Sandro Torrente) fresh from victory at the Final Olympic Qualifying Regatta. The South Africans are a very experienced crew, Brittain won silver in the M2- and Rio and Smith was Olympic champion in the LM4- in London. It remains to be seen whether they have energy to produce another performance so soon after the FOQR.
Romania were runners-up to the British at the Europeans. The 2019 silver medallists (Mihaita-Vasile Tiganescu, Mugurel Semcuic, Stefan-Constantin Berrariu, Cosmin Pascari) are a young crew three of whom were U23 BM4- World Champions in 2018.
Italy were World Champions in this event back in 2015 and have two of that boat in the 2021 crew (Marco Di Costanzo and Matteo Castaldo). At the 2019 World Championships Di Costanzo and Castaldo, along with Giovanni Abbagnale and Bruno Rosetti, were 4th and in 2020 they were runners-up to the Netherlands at the European Championships. This season they made the podium at the Europeans behind the British and Romanians.
Poland (Mateusz Wilangowski, Mikolaj Burda, Marcin Brzezinski, Michal Szpakowski) are the reigning World Champions in this event. At the European Championships this season they raced with Lucasz Posylajka in place of Brzezinski and finished 5th. Brzezinski returned to the crew for the Zagreb World Cup where they were beaten by France.
The Netherlands are heading into the Tokyo Olympics with more qualified boats (11) than any other nation. Their M4- (Jan van Der Bij, Boudewijn Roell, Sander der Graaf, Nelson Ritsma) were European champions in 2020 and in 2021 they finished 4th. Three of the crew raced in the M4- at the 2019 World’s taking 7th and Roell was in the NED M8 that won bronze at the Rio Olympics.
Also racing are two Swiss boats and one from Ireland. The Swiss number 2 boat and the Irish are their U23 crews. The number 1 Swiss boat (Markus Kessler, Paul Jacquot, Joel Schuerch, Andrin Gulich) were 8th at the Europeans this year and placed 4th at the Zagreb World Cup.
My picks…Great Britain in gold, South Africa in silver and the Netherlands in bronze.
M4X
9 crews
One of the surprises of the 2021 European Championships was the defeat of the Netherlands M4X. The crew of Dirk Uittenbogaard, Abe Wiersma, Tone Wieten & Koen Metsemakers dominated the field in 2019, not just winning gold but drawing considerable praise for the quality of their sculling. They also dominated the 2020 European Championships. But in 2021 they came unstuck against an Italian quad that dominated the final at the Europeans leading from start to finish.
Italy, Simone Venier, Luca Rambaldi, Andrea Panizza & Giacomo Gentili, were bronze medallists in 2019 and runners-up to the Dutch at the 2020 Europeans. Venier is one of the most experienced athletes in the field and will be heading to his 5th Olympics and he won a silver medal in the M4X back in 2008. It should be a cracking race again between them and the Dutch.
Poland were runners-up to the Netherlands at the 2019 World Championships and they have the same line-up racing in Lucerne (Dominik Czaja, Wiktor Chabel, Szymin Posnik & Fabian Baranski). Chabel is the sole remaining member of the Rio M4X that finished 4th. The Poles finished 5th at the 2020 Europeans and went one better in 2021.
Germany have struggled in this boat class since winning Olympic gold in Rio. Despite having two members of that boat back (Karl Schulze and Hans Gruhne) they have struggled to find the speed to be challenging for the medals. 5th at the 2019 World Championships with Max Appel and Timo Piontek. In 2020 Piontek was replaced by Tim Ole Naske. At the European Championships that year they finished 6th. They chose not to race at the 2021 Europeans, but instead made their season’s debut at the Zagreb World Cup, finishing 3rd behind Estonia and Poland.
For the last few years Great Britain have been a crew that have been “there or thereabouts”, plenty of A-final appearances but they have yet to produce a crew that can consistently challenge for the medals. Silver in 2017 and some World Cup golds during the 2018 and 2019 season showed promise but at the World Championships they slipped back to 8th just grabbing the last Olympic qualification place. For 2021 there have been some changes to the line-up, Jack Beaumont and Angus Groom remain from the 2019 crew, but they are joined by Harry Leask and Tom Barras, both of whom have raced in the M1X World Championship A-Final. Their first outing at the Europeans this season was a solid, if unspectacular 5th place. But, this is a boat with a huge amount of potential and they will be looking to step on in Lucerne and be pushing for a podium place.
Norway are another crew who will be looking for a significant improvement in performance. Led by the legendary Olaf Tufte the crew of Martin Helseth, Jan Helvig, Erik Solbakken and Tufte finished 7th in 2019. But this season they have struggled, 12th at the European Championships and 6th out 8 crews at the 1st World Cup.
The only non-European crew on the entry list are China. Xudi Yi, Ha Zang, Dang Liu and Quan Zhang were 6th at the 2019 World Championships. Zang, Liu and Zhang were part of the M4X back at the 2014 and 2015 World Championships. We’ll have to see what sort of speed the Chinese have brought to Europe this year.
Also entered are the Romanians (Adrian Damii, Andrei-Sebastian Cornea, Ioan Prundeanu & Marian-Florian Enache), but given their 4th place at the FOQR and the fact that this means they missed out on Olympic qualification, it remains to be seen if they do race.
My picks….The Netherlands to get revenge on the Italians who I’m picking for silver and the British to grab bronze.
M8+
4 crews
Only four entries, China, Germany, Great Britain and The Netherlands. But it promises to be an epic scrap. Germany were shocked by their poor performance at the European championships where they ended up in 4th. This was the first time a German M8 had missed the podium since the Beijing Olympics of 2008. Germany as a nation are having a bit of a torrid time leading up to Tokyo. They have qualified 7 crews across the men’s and women’s team, their fewest number ever. The Men’s 8 is the flagship of their team and for them to miss out on a medal was a shock to the system.
No such drama for Great Britain (although they would have been disappointed not to qualify any boats from the four they entered at the FOQR). The men’s 8 came to the 2021 Europeans with a point to prove after bronze medals at both the 2018 and 2019 World Championships. They dominated the race in Varese, rowing through the Germans in the 3rd 500 and leaving them in their wake….that must’ve felt immensely satisfying for the British crew.
The Netherlands were silver medallists in 2019 and have taken bronze at the last two Europeans. Their preparation for Lucerne took a bit of a knock when they got swamped during a sudden squall whilst they were on training camp, fortunately everyone emerged unscathed, but it’s not an ideal thing to happen!
China raced, unsuccessfully, at the Final Olympic Qualifying Regatta. Whether they will race in Lucerne following that disappointment we will have to wait and see, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they withdrew.
My picks…Great Britain to reinforce their win at the Europeans and the Netherlands to rub salt into the German’s wounds by taking the silver.
LM2X
18 crews
10 of the 18 boats that have qualified for Tokyo are racing in Lucerne, including all six of the A finalists from the 2019 World Championships.
Ireland’s Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan are the crew on form, they are the reigning World Champions and also won gold at the European Championships this season. O’Donovan shot to fame with a silver medal in Rio and McCarthy ousted O’Donovan’s brother, Gary, to win the seat in the double. He raced on the u23 team for four years from 2015-18 and made his senior debut at the 2018 World Championships in the LM4X.
Italy and Germany have been vying with each other for silver and bronze medals over the last couple of years. The Italians, Pietro Ruta and Stefano Oppo have won silver at the last three World Championships, and won gold at the 2020 Europeans (where the Irish didn’t race). This season they took bronze at the European Championships behind the Irish and Germans.
For their part the Germans, Jason Osborne and Jonathan Rommelmann, were European champions in 2019 and bronze medallists that year as well. They took silver behind the Italians at the 2020 Europeans, and behind the Irish this season. They also raced at the 1st World Cup (without the Irish and Italians) and took a comfortable gold medal.
These three crews will undoubtedly be battling each other for the medals again in Lucerne.
Norway’s Are Strandli and Kristoffer Brun have been racing together as a double since 2007 and were World champions in 2013, Olympic bronze medallists in 2016 and 4th in 2019. So far this season they’ve not raced in the LM2X, but did enter both the European Championships and the 1st World Cup in the M2X event (although didn’t race in either). This perhaps points towards issues with achieving the right race weight early in the season.
Poland’s Jerzy Kowalski and Artur Mikolajczewski are another long-established crew. They first raced together at the U23 World Championships in 2009. At the 2019 World Championships they were 6th and at last year’s Europeans they just missed out on a medal in 4th. They entered the 2021 Europeans but withdrew before racing started.
Other crews to look out for include Spain (Caetano Horta Pomba and Manel Balastegui), their 5th place finish at the 2019 World Championships was the best result by a Spanish LM2X since 1994. At the 2021 Europeans they missed out on an A-Final place by 3/10th of a second and ended up winning the B-Final.
Also look out for the Belgians, Tim Brys and Niels van Zandweghe. They are racing for the first time this season in Lucerne. At last year’s European’s they picked up a bronze medal behind Italy and Germany, repeating the medal they won in 2019. At the World Championships they secured qualification for Tokyo with a win in the B-Final, having won a bronze medal the previous year (which was Belgium’s first Olympic Class World Championship medal since 1995).
My picks…got to be another Irish gold, but behind them it’s going to be a great battle between the Italians, Germans and Norwegians for the silver and bronze. I’m going with Germany in silver and Italy bronze.
There’s one non-Olympic men’s event in Lucerne – the LM1X. This event has 16 entries and ones to pick out include two former LM2X World Champions, both of whom have lost their seats in the Olympic class boats – Gary O’Donovan of Ireland and Pierre Houin of France. They are up against the reigning LM1X World Champion, Martino Goretti of Italy. Also on the entry list is Artur Mikolajczewski of Poland who is also entered in the LM2X. This, perhaps, points to an issue with the LM2X and the LM1X entry is a “stand-by”?
That’s all for now. If you’re hungry for more, check out any of our other pieces from The Catch, listen to the latest podcast episode, or flick through our race previews.
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Cover image: World Rowing
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