Image credit: World Rowing
The final World Cup in Olympic year is always a bit of a strange affair. It’s often a mix of Olympic-bound crews looking for some final race practice, and nations looking to give experience to their development boats ahead of the next Olympic cycle. This year’s final World Cup is no different. The host for this World Cup is the Lake Malta course in Poznan, one of the most frequently used courses in all of World Rowing.
So, here’s my look at who to watch out for in each event and also perhaps a few names to watch for the LA Olympic cycle.
Entries: 5
This will probably turn into a straight shootout between Australia and Germany. Both crews are licking their wounds somewhat after a disappointing Lucerne World Rowing Cup. On that day the Aussies got the better of the Germans by just 6/10th of a second, but both crews were almost five seconds behind the third-placed Dutch. As a result of that disappointing performance, the Germans have made two changes to their line-up, including dropping two-time Olympian Hannes Ocik (who drops out of the squad entirely). They’ve also moved Marc Kammann out of the eight and into the four (a boat which hasn’t qualified for the Olympics). In place of Ocik and Kammann comes Frederik Breuer and Mattes Schoenherr. 22-year-old Breuer is a former U19 world champion and was a member of the M4- this season. Schoenherr was the stroke of the M8 in 2023 before being replaced by Ocik at the start of the season, and moving back to the four-seat for the Europeans. He was dropped from the crew for Lucerne but returns for Poznan and is back at stroke.
The Aussies have kept the same line-up as in Lucerne but will be expecting a much better performance. Hopefully with a couple of extra weeks of being in Europe the Australians will have acclimatised and will be able to produce the sort of performance they expect. But it does look like they are struggling to find the speed that took them to bronze at the world championships last year.
Behind these two boats it’ll be a battle for the bronze between Romania and two Ukrainian crews.
Romania are doubling-up in the pair plus four and their crew is made up mostly of recent or current U23’s with an average age of just over 20. Bowman Constantin Emanuele Sterea and cox Maria-Antonia Iancu are the only two members of the crew that raced at the first World Rowing Cup, finishing fifth.
Ukraine has two boats racing; their No.1 boat is made up of senior athletes who missed out on qualifying for the Olympics in the M4x and M4- at the Final Olympic Qualifying Regatta. It’s interesting to see the Ukrainians extending their season, and this could be their last hurrah for 2024 or could this perhaps be an entry for The Grand at Henley?
The second Ukrainian crew are their U23 crew with an average age of 21. This is predominantly the same line-up that raced at the European championships, finishing sixth out of the six crews.
Prediction
Australia to get the better of a crisis-hit Germany with the senior Ukrainians holding off the two U23 boats for the bronze (which if they manage to do will be Ukraine’s first M8 medal since 2011).
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