Image credit: World Rowing
With the start of the Paris Olympics just a few weeks away the time has come for the Final Olympic Qualifying Regatta, aka “The Regatta of Death”. This is the last chance for 28 boats to book their place at the Olympic party. Held on the glorious waters of the Rotsee in Lucerne – the aptly-named Lake of the Gods – it is, perhaps, the hardest and most brutal set of races throughout the entire Olympic cycle. The maths is very straightforward (unlike the Continental Qualifiers which are anything but); finish in the top two and you’re in. If you don’t then that’s it – the Olympic dream is over for another four years.
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Another small, but pretty competitive, field with probably only the lightweights from Hong Kong (Wing Wun Leung and Wing Yan Winne Hung) unlikely to be in with a chance. Poland also, somewhat surprisingly, has selected their lightweight double from the Europeans, Jessika Sobocinska and Zuzanna Jasinska, to race at open-weight. The Poles were fifth in the LW2X in Szeged so may have fancied their chances at lightweight, but clearly the team thought they’d be better off in the Open category. Time will tell!
This should be a fascinating contest between the remaining five doubles, Czechia, Germany, Great Britain, South Africa and Switzerland. The Czechs race with Anna Santruckova and Lenka Luksova. Santrukova was sixth in the BW1X at the U23 world championships last year and Luksova was Czechia’s representative in the W1x at the 2023 world championships where she finished 21st. At the European Championships they produced an outstanding performance, just missing out on the podium.
Germany’s Frauke Hundeling and Sarah Wibberenz won bronze at the Varese World Cup. They were both members of the W4X that finished seventh last year (qualifying that boat for Paris) but miss out on selection for that boat this season. They will have high hopes of taking one of the two qualification spots available in Lucerne.
Great Britain has struggled in the last few years to find a combination that can regularly challenge for A-Finals and medals. The last time GB won a medal in this boat class at a championship regatta was bronze at the 2021 Europeans. For the Europeans they put together a new combination of Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne and Becky Wilde. For Hodgkins-Byrne the Europeans was her first appearance in a GB boat since finishing seventh in the W4X at the Tokyo Olympics. Wilde, a former international swimmer, is a product of the World Class start programme. She raced at the European U23 championships in 2019, but Szeged was her first senior international appearance. This new combination made a positive start to their time together, winning the B-Final at the Euros.
South Africa has, so far, only qualified one women’s boat for Paris (the W1X) but they will have high hopes that their double of Paige Badenhorst and Katherine Williams can add to that tally. They came together as a double at the start of last season, picking up South Africa’s first ever medal in this event with bronze at the first World Cup. They ended the season in 12th just one place off automatic qualification.
One of the most interesting new combinations this season were the Swiss, Nina Wettstein and Jeanine Gmelin. They made the A-Final at the first World Cup, finishing fifth and followed that up by finishing one place further down at the Europeans. Gmelin, the 2017 W1X world champion, stepped away from the sport at the end of the 2022 season. She’s the first Swiss woman to win the W1X title and also made the A-Final at both the Rio and Tokyo Olympics. Wettstein is a former U23 world champion and made her senior debut in 2022. She raced in the W2X last season with Fabienne Schweizer, but their 12th place wasn’t good enough to secure Olympic qualification.
Prediction
This could be too close to call. I’m going to stick my neck out and give the top two spots to Germany and South Africa.
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