Image Credit: World Rowing
How do you define greatness? A mind-bending feat that surpasses expectation and rationality? A moment of authentic surprise that inverts the weight of pressing odds? Or perhaps an incision in the linear unfurling of your heart?
In sport, we are quick to anoint greatness upon each other. A performance that impresses us is often bestowed the virtue of greatness before it can even truly be understood. It is easy to attach brilliance onto bravery and boldness but sometimes the two should not be conflated. True greatness should combine mastery, magnanimity and more than a hint of magic.
The Olympic Games is our ultimate magic show. A procession of truly elite talent, operating at the pinnacle of their sport and thrust forward into a limelight fostered by four years of relative translucency. These two weeks are stitched into the very fabric of competition, dating back to the lore of Ancient Greece, and have transcended the politics of modern society to become the ultimate marker in sporting excellence. To win Olympic Gold gives you immortality of a rare and timeless specification – your story will be perpetuated forevermore, carried forward by the whispers of generations to come, who too aim to climb those sacred steps and join this club of champions. Emerging over the horizon, this time in the blue and red hue of palatial Paris, we are ready for the very fastest in rowing to be crowned.
Step forward, my friends – The Olympic Games have come.
Damir Martin (Croatia)
A legend of the game and a sculler who is approaching his fourth Olympic Games, having medaled at all of the previous three (two silvers and a bronze). Martin has a handy habit of peaking at just the right time, a point evidenced by his relative anonymity throughout this Olympiad before pulling his best result out of the bag right when it came to securing qualification for the Paris Olympics (a sixth-placed finish at the 2023 world rowing championships).
The big Croatian came up with the Sinkovic brothers, winning consecutive golds at the U23 world championships before securing silver at the London Olympics in the quad (a result that was arguably a surprise with the Croatians having won all three World Rowing Cups approaching the event). His silver in Rio will be remembered in perpetuity as he drove Mahe Drysdale right to the line, missing out on gold by less than 0.01 of a second. Following on from a bronze in the disrupted Tokyo era, many assumed he might call it a day, consigning the pursuit of an elusive gold to the annals of history. Not so – he is back in 2024 with history books to re-write. Based on his form to date – inclusive of this season – a medal looks unlikely. With this athlete though, the weight of destiny and the swirl of the season are firmly behind him.
Giedrius Bieliauskas (Lithuania)
Lithuania’s chosen representative in the single scull – after Dovydas Nemeravicius qualified the boat at the 2023 world championships – Bieliauskas has made the switch to this boat class in 2024 after spending last season in both the double and quad. His form so far has been good – bronze at the Europeans was followed by seventh overall at the second World Rowing Cup.
The Lithuanian first emerged into the public eye in 2016, when he finished 13th overall at the U23 world championships in the single. His performances in various crew boats after that were fairly unremarkable; a handful of B-finals and C-finals at various World Rowing Cups was trumped in 2022 by a first A-final showing in the quad (excluding a fifth-placed finish in a field of five at the 2020 European championships). Bieliauskas’s Olympic predecessor, Mindaugas Griskonis, was sixth in Tokyo and a repeat of that result would be a super showing for the 26-year-old.
Mihai Chiruta (Romania)
Yet another rolling off the incredible production line of talent in this eastern European powerhouse, Chiruta came through the 2024 World Rowing Final Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta to earn his place on the Parisian starting grid. He saw off a field of scullers including the big American, Jacob Plihal (who took the second and final qualifying spot), Italy’s Davide Mumolo and Great Britain’s George Bourne (who had beaten him to an A-final slot at the European championships a few weeks earlier).
This is clearly a sculler on the rise; he narrowly missed out on qualification for Tokyo following a stint in the single that also included a fourth-placed finish at the 2019 U23 world championships. Since the last Olympics, he’s plied his trade in the Romanian quad, finishing sixth and seventh at the respective world championships before qualifying the single for the Paris Olympic Games. Frankly, he’s an outside bet for the A-final and there were several other scullers who are likely to be in and around him, including Plihal, who raced to the final of the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta a couple of weekends ago, Vasilev of Bulgaria and Ryuta Arakawa of Japan.
Stefano Ntouskos (Greece)
The Olympic champion from Tokyo returns for his third Olympic Games and his second tilt at single sculling glory. His win in Japan three years ago was arguably one of the shocks of the entire regatta, unseating world champion Oliver Zeidler (who did not even make the A-final) and seeing off legends of the game including Kjetil Borch and Damir Martin. His form approaching the rescheduled 2020 Games was unremarkable; he won silver at the U23 world championships in 2019 before finishing fifth in the B-final at the senior world championships and fifth overall at the 2020 European championships.
No-one saw his victory coming in 2021 and a gold medal looks similarly unlikely in 2024, albeit his name is at least in the conversation approaching Paris. Although we at JRN do not think he’ll have what it takes to make the podium, his fierce racing mentality and apparent ability to upset the established order makes him impossible to ignore and an outside bet for a medal. His best result since gold in Tokyo has been a succession of silver medals at the 2022, 2023 and 2024 European championships but he’s failed to make the podium at either of the subsequent world championships. An A-final seems probable; a medal seems improbable. A medal of the gold variety? Well, we’ll leave you to decide.
Sverri Nielsen (Denmark)
Of Faroese descent, Nielsen is one of the sport’s nearly-men. Operating consistently at the cutting edge of competition but never quite making that proclaimed step to the top of the podium. He has not registered a win in international competition since emerging victorious from the third World Rowing Cup in 2021 and his performances have arguably been diminishing in quality. From featuring as a regular sparring partner to Oliver Zeidler, the Dane’s statistics in 2024 make for blemished reading; fourth at the European championships (six seconds off Zeidler), fourth at the second World Rowing Cup and bronze at the third do not speak of an athlete ready to swing for gold.
There is no doubt that Nielsen has the horsepower. A rumoured 2km time of 5:45 speaks to an athlete who has all the raw materials to push the boat but the question remains as to whether he can overcome the consistency with which he applies himself to the middle of A-finals. If you had asked me two years ago, I would have regarded the Dane as a shoo-in for a medal, but the emergence of Dutch and Kiwi prospects have pushed him back. If he can secure a berth in the Parisian A-final, I expect him to push the key medal contenders all the way.
Yauheni Zalaty (Individual Neutral Athletes)
With only four international caps before this season, Zalaty is a new addition to the single sculling ranks at the tender age of 24. He announced himself to the world by winning the B-final at the 2023 world championships before finishing fifth at the 2024 Europeans and then winning a stunning bronze at the second World Rowing Cup, when most of the top athletes were competing.
It would not be the first time that an athlete from Eastern Europe has stunned the field to take home an Olympic medal. In Tokyo, Anna Prakaten jumped from the quad in late 2020 to the single in 2021 and secured the European title before winning silver at the Olympics. If Zalaty can emulate those feats, he’ll surely be delighted and enter esteemed company at the top end of this illustrious field. In Lucerne in late May, he was seven seconds back on Van Dorp of the Netherlands but is clearly picking up significant speed.
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