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: 9
This is likely to be a two-part race with France and New Zealand duking it out for the gold and the rest of the field squabbling over bronze
France are represented by Claire Bove and Laura Tarantola. For the French, their 11th place at the 2023 world championships was a major disappointment and the first time the duo had missed an A-Final in the six years they had been racing together. They won medals at both the 2022 and 2023 Europeans as well as numerous World Rowing Cup medals over the last few years. They secured qualification with a win at the Final Olympic Qualifying Regatta.
Shannon Cox and Jackie Kiddle of New Zealand won silver behind Great Britain at the Lucerne World Rowing Cup this season. Kiddle was world champion in this event back in 2019 and she and Cox finished fifth in 2023. Kiddle also won world championship medals in 2017 (silver) and 2022 (LW1X bronze) and she’s also a regular competitor at both the beach Sprints and the coastal world championships. Who knows, maybe she’ll switch to that discipline post-Paris. Cox is a relative newcomer to the Kiwi team, making her international debut in 2023. This is a double with a lot of potential and they will have been delighted to have won silver in Lucerne.
Poland’s Martyna Radosz and Katarzyna Welna are two of the most experienced athletes in this event. They secured their place in Paris with victory at the European Olympic Qualifying Regatta. Last season they finished in eighth place – one spot off automatic qualification. Radosz raced in this boat class at the Rio Olympics (with Weronika Deresz), finishing with a B-Final win and has been racing as a senior international since 2015. Welna made her senior debut whilst still a teenager, winning bronze at the 2013 European Championship (also with Deresz).
China finished sixth in the world last year, but as with many other nations they aren’t sending their Olympic boat to Poznan. Instead it’s the turn of Wenxia Zhang and Jiangli Hu. This duo raced as CHN2 in Lucerne, finishing 12th.
Eline Rol and Olivia Nacht of Switzerland have been racing together on and off for the last few seasons, although the originally selected crew for the Europeans saw Rol planning to race (for the first time) with her cousin Federique. However, the latter pulled out just before the championships so Nacht re-joined the boat that she had raced in at the first World Rowing Cup. At the Europeans, Rol and Nacht made the A-Final. They missed out on an Olympic spot after finishing fifth at the FOQR.
Austria secured their spot at the Olympics with a second-placed finish at the European Olympic Qualifying Regatta. Louisa Altenhuber and Lara Tiefenthaler won silver at the opening World Rowing Cup of the 2023 season and went on to finish 14th at the world championships. This season they raced at the opening World Rowing Cup of the year and placed seventh. For Altenhuber, Paris will be her second Olympic Games after racing in the LW2X in Tokyo with Valentina Cavallar, a crew which finished 14th.
Argentina qualified for Paris with victory at the Americas Olympic Qualifying Regatta. The crew of Sonia Baluzzo Chiaruzzo and Evelyn Maricel Silvestro produced the best ever result for an Argentinian LW2X when making the A-Final at the Zagreb World Rowing Cup last season. They raced at the Pan-Ams last year, winning bronze
Another Olympic qualifier from the Americas are the Peruvian twins of Alessia and Valeria Palacios. They are one of the best crews to come out of Peru in recent memory. As U23’s, they won BLW2- silver at the 2022 U23 world championships and as seniors they finished 19th at the world championships. They raced in Lucerne this season, placing tenth out of the ten entries.
The final crew in the event are the African Olympic Qualifying Regatta winners, Tunisia, featuring Khadija Krimi and Selma Dhaouadi. They also raced in Lucerne, finishing in an excellent seventh place, the best ever result for a Tunisian crew in an Olympic-class event. Krimi raced at the Tokyo Olympics (with Nour Elhouda Ettaieb) finishing 16th. Dhaouadi represented France at U19 and U23 level, winning silver in the BLW4X in 2015 and in 2023 she switched to representing Tunisia.
Prediction
New Zealand in gold with France in silver and Poland in bronze.
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