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: Five
In the absence of both the British and the Germans, the Ukrainian combination of Anna Aisanova and Iaroslav Koiuda are the top performers from the European Championships racing this weekend in Switzerland. This duo raced together for the first time just a few weeks ago and almost came away with silver, before being rowed through by the Germans finishing who finished a mere four-tenths ahead of them. This weekend, they will aim to build on that chemistry to propel them down the lake of the gods.
The Polish double of Jolanta Majka and Michal Godowski have been having raced together since 2011, picking up four World Championship medals along the way. Despite this experience, it just didn’t click as a poor performance across the first two days of the regatta saw them restricted to the minor final. With such experience in Majka who will be attending her fifth Paralympic games this summer, they will look to rally this weekend in Lucerne.
Splitting the difference between those two crews is the Dutch pairing of Gertrudes Bregitta Van Der Loosand Cornelis De Koning. They raced together at the European Championships, finishing fifth overall, having not raced together in nearly eight years. De Koning won silver in Tokyo with Annika Van Der Meer, but his new partner just wasn’t clicking. Out of retirement stepped Van Der Loos, who re-joined her partner from the Rio 2016 cycle, which ultimately ended in a fourth-place finish. The sport has changed in her absence, as crews now race a full 2000m course, but Van Der Loos proved her class with a strong return in Hungary.
The only crew racing this weekend who weren’t in Szeged are the Irish duo of Steven McGowan and Katie O’Brien, who have rowing together throughout the length of this shortened cycle. They finished in fifth place at both the 2023 and 2022 World Rowing Championships, and while O’Brien continued performing well in the singles events in 2022, all focus was on the double in 2023 as they finished fifth in all three international events they competed in. With only five entries here, they will be hoping to step on as they eye up a strong performance in the Paris games just a few short months away.
The final crew on the roster is Shahar Milfelder and Saleh Shahin of Israel, who raced together internationally for the first time at the 2023 World Championships. When there, they were impressive and a mere 0.32 seconds away from progressing through the repechage, but slipped down to the B-final, ruling them out of earning a spot in Paris. Instead, they were forced into the Final Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta, also in Lucerne, earlier this week. They had a tough race to get to the Games as they needed to beat at least one of the crews who they lost to at the European Championships in April. Despite the odds, they managed to pull through, defeating the Germans by 1.4 seconds. This weekend will allow them to demonstrate that speed against some other members of the Paralympic field.
Prediction
With the speed they showed at their first race, there could be a real challenge to the status quo coming from Ukraine – and that could begin with a win here. For the other medals, I think the experience of the Netherlands and Poland may be enough to recover from underwhelming performances at the European Championships to win silver and bronze respectively.
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