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: 12
With the reigning World Champions, Ireland, skipping WC1, the hot favourites in this event will be Italy and Switzerland.
The Swiss, Jan Schaeuble and Raphael Ahumada Ireland finished as runners-up to the Irish in 2023. They also won gold at the Europeans last year (Switzerland’s first championship gold in the light double since winning the Olympics in Atlanta). They have been racing together in the light double since 2022 and won gold at the opening World Cup and then European bronze before ending the season with fourth at the World Championships.
Italy have a strong history in this event although they have yet to win the Olympic title and last won World gold in 2003. They have two boats racing at their home World Cup. Racing as ITA1 are Stefano Oppo and Gabriel Soares. They won bronze at the 2023 World Championships. Oppo, along with long-time partner Pietro Ruta, won World Championship silver in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022. They also won Olympic bronze in Tokyo. Soares raced in the LM1X in 2022 winning the World title and in 2019 was in the LM4X that won world championship silver.
ITA2 are Neils Torre and Giovanni Borgonovo. Torre won silver in the LM1X at the 2023 World Championships and the year before won World Championship gold in the LM4X. Borgonovo is the reigning U23 BLM1X World Champion and also has U23 gold from 2022 in the BLM2X. The two Italian doubles raced each other in Piediluco with the more senior crew of Oppo/Soares winning and their younger counterparts placing third.
Germany won silver in this boat class in Tokyo with their crew of Jason Osborne and Jonathan Rommelmann. Osborne retired from rowing after Tokyo and Rommelmann was joined in the double for the 2023 season by Paul Leerkamp. This duo didn’t really fire in 2023, and their tenth place wasn’t good enough to gain automatic qualification for Paris, so Varese will be a good test of their speed as they prepare for the FOQR in Lucerne next month.
Germany also has a second boat racing in Varese, the reigning U23 World Champions, Nikita Mohr and Finn Wolter. This duo raced in Piediluco finishing fourth behind both the Italian boats and a Greek double.
Norway’s Lars Benske and Ask Jarl Tjoem reached the A-Final at the 2023 Worlds and in doing so qualified the boat for Paris. They started racing together at the beginning of the 2022 season and won gold at the second World Cup. They followed this up with bronze at World Cup 3 and then ninth at the World Championships.
Austria is another nation with two boats entered. AUT1 is Julian Schoeberl and Lukas Reim; this duo finished 14th at the 2022 World Championships. AUT2 is Konrad Hultsch – sixth in the BLM1x at the U23 Worlds last year – and Paul Ruttmann, who sculled with Julian Schoeberl last year, finishing 20th at the World Championships.
One crew who have secured their spot in Paris is Egypt. Mohamed Kota and Ahmed Abdelaal finished 30th at the 2022 World Championships, but secured their Olympic spot by winning the African Olympic Qualifying Regatta last month.
The Netherlands don’t have a particularly strong reputation in lightweight men’s rowing, and a NED LM2X is quite a rare occurrence. But they have entered Varese with a crew of Brian Poll and Max Gompel. They were both in the LM4X that finished third (out of three) at the second World Cup last year.
The final two crews racing are Estonia and Portugal. Estonia race with Ander Koppel and Artjom Holostohh. Koppel was 18th in this event in 2023 and 20-year-old Holostohh makes his senior debut having raced on the U23 team last season. Portugal is represented by brothers Afonso and Dinis Duarte Costa. They raced in this event at the 2023 World Championships, placing 17th.
Prediction
Switzerland in gold with Italy 1 in silver and Norway in bronze.
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