Image credit: World Rowing
The first World Cup of any new season is often a bit of a tepid affair, with lots of straight finals or no races in some boat classes at all. But, this year, in Varese, it’s a different matter. Being Olympic year, and with the Final Olympic Qualifying Regatta just five weeks away, Varese has drawn a huge and high quality field.
So, as always, I’ll look at each boat class and pick out the main contenders.
Entries: 7
This is the first time since Munich 2008 that the opening World Cup has had more than six entries for both the men’s and women’s 8’s. In the men’s race it looks as though it will be a battle between the British, Dutch and Germans for the medals.
Great Britain successfully defended their world title in 2023 and start the 2024 season with the same line-up that won in Belgrade and all the crew are in the same seats as 2023 – well, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it! The British will be strong favourites to start the season with a win.
The Netherlands were runners-up to the British in 2022 and 2023. They have made two changes to the 2023 line-up with Ralf Rienks and Ruben Knab coming into the bow pair. These two raced in the M4- at the World Championships although were in the M8 that won bronze at the European Championships.
The German M8 has been going through a crisis of confidence in the last few years. After a number of senior athletes retired after Tokyo along with surprise coaching changes, the Deutscland-Achter has been going through a, somewhat painful, rebuilding process. After a disastrous 2022, which saw the M8 fail to make the A-Final for only the second time in World Championship history, they had a slightly better 2023, securing the fifth and final Olympic qualifying spot at the World Championships. They’ve made two changes to the 2023 crew with Olympic silver medallists Laurits Follert and Hannes Ocik coming back into the crew.
The home nation (Italy) has two crews entered; their ‘A’ crew includes six of the boat that won the B-Final in 2023. The new members of the crew are the Vicino twins, Luca and Marco. This duo are the reigning U23 BM2- World Champions. Seventh last year means that if Italy want a M8 at the Olympics they will need to race at the Final Olympic Qualifying Regatta. This line-up raced in Piediluco, winning against a predominantly U23 Romanian eight and the ITA2 boat racing in Varese which is the Italian development/U23 crew (with four of the World Championship winning BM4+ from 2023).
Romania has the majority of the Piediluco crew racing in Varese with the majority of the crew coming from the U23 BM8 that finished sixth last year.
The final crew in the event is Austria. They raced at the 2023 World Championships as the first Austrian M8 to do so since the 1970’s. They return for 2024 with seven of the crew that finished tenth last year. The new members of the crew are Thomas Lehner and Joerg Auerbach.
Prediction
Great Britain will want to lay down a marker that they are picking up where they left off in 2023 and send a message to countries like Australia who aren’t racing in Varese. The Netherlands will be looking to spoil their party and the Germans will want a confidence-building performance whilst the Italians will be looking to prep for the FOQR. I’m picking GB in gold with the Netherlands in silver and the Germans in bronze.
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