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: 4
Of the four entries, Great Britain are the only crew to have raced so far this season. However, this is not the easiest to draw comparisons from. In the first World Rowing Cup, the eight had raced as GBR2 and GBR3 in the fours race just an hour previously, so their three-seat loss to the Italians is far from representative of their true speed. At the European championships, they raced just in the eight and finished around a length back on the Romanians, so there is still room to grow. As they emerge from an Olympiad where the crew has had at least one member doubling-up most of the time, it will be interesting to see how they can perform with just the eight to focus on.
While the British line-up has remained relatively stable from last season to this one, this is not the case with new-look crews in each of the other entries in this event. This is particularly typified by the Canadian crew who have four rowers returning from the eight who finished fifth to claim the final Olympic spot from Belgrade. They are joined by both members of the 18th-placed pair, one rower who finished tenth in the coxless four plus still-U23 eligible Abigail Dent, who races her first event with the senior team following three trips to U23 worlds in as many years. They will be hoping this buoys the fortunes of this crew as the only women’s sweep boat racing in Paris, though it remains to be seen how well they can gel as a crew against such tough opposition.
Their neighbours to the south, the United States also draw from a number of different parts of last season’s squad with all three sweep boats represented in this crew. The eight was the only medal winner in Belgrade and it seems it has been bolstered by great experience from elsewhere including Olivia Coffey, who makes her return to international racing for the first time since the last Olympics in Tokyo. This crew contains six Olympic veterans who will want to show the benefits of experience in their first race together against some of the best crews in the world as they aim to win the women’s eight as they did in Rio, with Megham Musnicki again in the crew to lead the way.
The final team travel the furthest to be on the start line in Lucerne: the crew from Australia. This boat contains the entirety of the four who finished fifth in Belgrade to qualify in that category but have been brought into the eight as it would better maximise the success of the Australian team. There, they join three rowers from the 2023 bronze-medal-winning eight along with Samantha Morton, a young talent who will make her senior international debut following an U23 world championship victory in 2022. The selectors hope that this crew will be equipped to maximise their performance and be among the medals in Paris, and a key stepping stone on that path will be a great result this weekend.
Prediction
With most of these crews completely changed from how they looked last season, the predictions are less scientific than I would like, but the United States crew, with all of its great experience, would be my pick for gold. Great Britain, while off the pace of the Romanians in April, have the quality and speed to pick up silver. I fancy the Australians over the Canadians for bronze.
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