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: 4
In their first race together in this boat class, the German crew of Hermine Krumbein and Jan Helmich were within three tenths of a second of the European championship, quickly announcing themselves on the scene. Previously, Krumbein qualified the boat class with the assistance of Valentin Luz, finishing fifth on her international debut. This season, she is joined by Helmich who had previously been rowing in the coxed four, a boat where he won bronze and silver at the last two world championships. The German selectors have brought this crew together to maximise their chances of gold in Paris and given the result in Szeged, they have the capability of achieving as much. With no Brits in this race, they will be looking to pick up the first golds as a duo in one of the iconic venues of world rowing.
After finishing seventh at the world championships last year, the Ukrainian double of Dariia Kotyk and Stanislav Samoliuk were forced to race in the Final Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta earlier in the week. They claimed the only qualification spot without too much trouble as they finished almost a minute in front of their closest competition. This speed was well on show as the combination finished third three weeks earlier at the European championships in Hungary, ahead of some of those already qualified for Paris, demonstrating the have real speed in their boat coming into the weekend.
The two remaining entries are difficult to evaluate. The Egyptian double of Ali Elzieny and Marwa Abdelall qualified through the African Continental Qualifiers, but have no previous races organised by World Rowing on their resume.
However, the situation with the Mexican double is far stranger. Angeles Gutierrez and Miguel Nieto Carpiohave rowed together in the double at three global regattas since 2022 but were in the more restrictive category of PR2. Their results were poor, finishing in last place at both world championships in that time. However, at the Americas qualification regatta, in the absence of a spot being available in the PR2 mixed double, they raced here in PR3 and qualified the boat despite the massively different rowing stroke between the two categories. They will race this weekend in the PR3 category in preparation for what I can only assume will be a tough progression before they take the start line in Paris.
Prediction
The Germans presented so much speed in Szeged in combination with the fatigue from racing two world-level regattas in a week they will get the better of the crew from Ukraine for gold. In the fight for the minor medal, my guess would go to the Egyptian double as one can assume they are more used to using their legs in the rowing stroke than the Mexicans rowing up.
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