Image Credit: World Rowing
The second World Rowing Cup of the year promises so much. Our European contenders, who we have already seen race on one, if not two, occasions this year meet their rivals from across continents as Australia, New Zealand, the USA and a number of other heavy-hitting global players converge on Lucerne in what will be many crews’ final race before the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. As always, JRN are previewing every single event in-depth as we take another enormous step forward towards the crowning moment of our sport.
Entries: 10
Now we get to it. One of the punchiest boat classes comes alive on the Rotsee this weekend as world and Olympic champions collide in the final face-off before the last stretch to Paris begins. To begin, look no further than our world champions in the blue corner – Great Britain. Until the first World Rowing Cup of this season, these boys were undefeated in two years but suffered a shock loss to home favourites and FOQR-bound Italy in both the heat and final. The European championships, on more neutral Hungarian waters, re-established the predicted order as Great Britain executed a superb race to clinch gold by nearly three seconds.
With no Italy present – given their Olympic qualification status is still pending as of the time of writing – the French were the next fastest-finishers in Szeged, some five seconds back on the British. This crew mirrored this result in 2023 and finished sixth at the world championships later that summer, so expect them to be competitive approaching a home Olympics.
Australia are the Olympic champions but have really struggled to keep pace with the British since winning gold in Tokyo. They were fifth at the world championships last summer, a result that will have underwhelmed the selectors, which is perhaps why this crew bares three changes from that boat. Out go Alex Purnell, Spencer Turrin and Jack Hargreaves (all into the men’s eight) and in come Timothy Masters, Fergus Hamilton and Jack Robertson. Masters and Robertson were in the men’s eight in 2023 (which won a bronze at the world championships and a gold at the third World Rowing Cup) whilst Hamilton spent the 2023 season in the pair, culminating in an eighth-placed finish overall at the world championships. On paper, the Aussies have opted to strengthen the eight in a clear sign that they feel that is the better chance of a gold medal.
Both the USA and New Zealand name unchanged crews from the outfits that took world silver and bronze respectively. I am excited to see both boats in action; Nick Mead, Justin Best, Mike Grady and Liam Corrigan all raced at the Tokyo Olympics for Team USA (Mead, Best and Corrigan in the M8 and Grady in the M4-). Their silver medal was an excellent result in Belgrade and sets the crew up well for a tilt at gold in Paris.
New Zealand have opted to make this four their priority men’s sweep crew and both MacDonald and Murray were in the Kiwi men’s eight that won gold at the Tokyo Olympics. Ollie MacLean and Logan Ullrich both made their senior debuts in Lucerne last summer, having raced on the U23 team previously (Maclean was a 2017 world champion in the quad whilst Ullrich was a silver medalist in 2022 in the four). This boat showed a lot of promise last season and I think they will be quietly confident about improving upon their third-placed showing in Belgrade.
The Netherlands are back from their altitude training camp and are one of the form programmes in World Rowing. This crew are the same line-up who won bronze at the first World Rowing Cup and contains only one of the athletes who finished fourth in the world last September (Rik Rienks). They’ll be trying to push onto the crews in front.
Switzerland were fifth at the European championships but 15 seconds off the pace set by a rampant British outfit. Before that, they matched this result at the first World Rowing Cup but were beaten by a range of different crews who are not present this weekend, including Italy and Germany.
France 2 are the pair that finished 17th overall at the 2023 world championships (Florian Ludwig and Armand Pfister) and two of the U23 four that won bronze at their respective world championships last summer (Nikola Kolarevic and Alistair Gicqueau).
Prediction
Based on form, it would be foolish to predict anything other than a win for Great Britain. That said, the previously infallible British unit have already had one wobble this season and their rivals – of whom there are numerous – may smell a weakness. I will be especially curious to see just how much speed the New Zealand boat has gained since its last outing nearly nine months ago and I think they will take silver ahead of the USA in bronze.
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