Image Credit: World Rowing
With St Catharine’s, Canada set to host the senior, U23 and U19 world championships, we’re set for a thoroughly enjoyable week of racing across the Atlantic. Although we’re going to be missing the very top-end of our sport – given the fact that the Paris regatta only finished two weeks ago – the next generation of Olympic medalists could well be on show next week.
Alexandra Foester (Germany)
Foester arrives in Canada as the stand-out favourite for an U23 title she already has in her trophy cabinet from 2021 and 2022. This would be her third in four years and cement her firmly as a name to watch as we progress into the LA Olympiad. She has been plying her trade on the senior circuit for the past two years and raced at the Paris Olympics, finishing seventh overall in the women’s single. This represented a stunning campaign for Foester, who also won silver at the opening World Rowing Cup and matched that result at the European championships.
Aurelia-Maxima Katharina Janzen (Switzerland)
Where the men’s single might be lacking a little top-end sparkle, the women’s is more than making up for it with two recently-minted Olympians clashing for honours. Katharina Janzen is Switzerland’s finest single sculling hope since Jeannine Gmelin and is renowned for her use of Macon blades and Swift boats, neither of which are especially popular at the business end of rowing. She finished ninth overall in Paris, just under four seconds behind Foester who she’ll meet again in Canada. This could be one of the races of the weekend.
Mazarine Guilbert (Belgium)
Fourth in this event in 2023, Guilbert will be desperate to break onto the podium in 2024 but faces exceptional competition in a year when she may have been forgiven for thinking she’d have an easier ride. With the entrance of two Olympians into the field, it will be difficult for the young Belgian but she was seventh overall at the World Rowing Final Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta (amongst a host of U23-eligible athletes who raced at this event) and also finished eighth at the European championships back in April.
Evangelia Fragkou (Greece)
Another athlete who raced at the World Rowing Final Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta and also the second highest-placing returning sculler from the 2023 U23 world championships – where she won bronze – Fragkou will be looking to disrupt the established order mentioned above. She was eighth overall in Lucerne at the regatta of death and is a former U23 world champion in the pair (2022) and a former junior world bronze medalist in the single (2021).
Wiktoria Kalinowska (Poland)
Another athlete who had raced at a senior level, Kalinowska is already a three-times U23 medalist; she collected bronze in the lightweight double in 2021 before successive silvers in the same boat class through 2022 and 2023. She has moved to openweight competition in 2024, racing at the World Rowing Final Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta (12th overall) and the third World Rowing Cup, where she finished sixth. She also competed at last year’s senior world championships, finishing 17th overall in the openweight women’s double.
Courtney Westley (South Africa)
Another returner from last year’s A-final – where she placed fifth – this will be Westley’s third U23 world championships (she also finished sixth in the double in 2022). She may find the going tougher in 2023 – all of her major competition have been busy racing each other on the international circuit and will have a better understanding of their relative order. The question the South African needs to answer is whether she’s ready to be the wildcard.
Milla Massemin (France)
Massemin was fifth in the double at last year’s U23 world championships but will be hard-pushed to better that result in the single given the level of depth in the field. Potentially inspired by a home Olympics, she will hope to find a way into the A-final, which in this category would mark a significant achievement.
Prediction
It is really difficult to look past Foester of Germany and Katharina Janzen of Switzerland for gold and silver, perhaps even respectively. The tussle for bronze should be compelling but I think Fragkou might just edge it.
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