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: 6
With the current world, European and Olympic champions all vying for top spot in Lucerne, this race promises to be a cracker.
Great Britain will start as favourites given recent form. After a slightly disappointing start to the season, where they finished fourth at the first World Rowing Cup behind Ukraine, the Netherlands and Germany, GB bounced back at the European championships to take the title and beat two of those three crews. After collecting a world title in 2023, this crew are heading into the Olympics with the weight of expectation growing and how they respond to that, both this weekend and in the racing to come, will be a significant indicator of their ability to compete for gold.
World silver medalists in 2022 and 2023, the Netherlands program would forsake all of their near-misses to be crowned Olympic champion in 2024. With an unchanged line-up heading into the season, this crew were silver medalists at the first World Rowing Cup (behind the Ukraine, who just qualified for the Olympics proper via the FOQR) and will be keen to stamp their authority on proceedings this weekend.
China return to the fold after a relatively disappointing 2023 which saw them take world bronze. By no means is that a poor performance in comparison to the universal standard but for the Olympic – and up until 2023, world – champions, it will have been a bitter pill to swallow. In their first race of 2024 – where they name an unchanged line-up who all won Olympic gold in 2024 – they’ll be focused on trying to return back to the top of the podium.
Australia take to the water for the time in 2024 and bring with them two of the crew who won bronze in Tokyo (Rowena Meredith and Caitlin Cronin). They’ve made one change to the boat that finished fifth in the world last September, as Laura Gourley comes in to replace Harriet Hudson. Gourley was eighth in the double scull in Belgrade.
Germany are an interesting group, whose collective struggles to return to the giddy heights of yesteryear German sculling entities has so far fallen short. They failed to make the ‘A’ final at the world championships last summer, which has become an unfortunately common occurence in the past eight or so years (their only feature was in 2017). This crew were third at the first World Rowing Cup in Varese and matched that result at the European championships.
Switzerland were fourth in the world last year and have had a solid, if unspectacular, start to 2024. They were fifth in Varese and fifth again in Szeged at the Europeans. If they can better that result in Lucerne, that would mark a profound step-on given the relative strength of the field. After the USA and Ukraine booked their places on the plane to Paris earlier this week, and Romania to re-enter the fray, the onus will be on the Swiss to ensure they lock down an ‘A’ final placing.
Prediction
According to the form-book, Great Britain are the crew to bet on. I think the British showed a marked step-on in their performance at Szeged in comparison to two weeks prior in Varese but the Dutch will be back with a vengeance and the Chinese are an Olympic champion crew who are hurting from an uninspiring 2023. I think GB will take this one but it will be incredibly close.
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