The stage is set for sport’s grandest show. Under a Parisian twilight, thousands of athletes will take to the Seine to parade on behalf of their home nation. The river which winds through the beating heart of France’s capital will come alive to the beat of the sporting drum and rowing, an Olympic sport since the turn of the previous century, will be represented by no less than nine flag-bearers.
For many rowers though, the Opening Ceremony will be missed entirely as heats begin in earnest tomorrow morning (Saturday 27th July, 9am CET). JRN has invested considerable effort into revealing the runners and riders for every category, including gold, silver and bronze medal profiles for each. Although we back our predictive analysts – led by the legendary Dan Spring – to the hilt, we thought we’d shake things up with a few nods towards the athletes who are travelling to Paris with chaos on the mind.
Men’s Single Scull – Stefanos Ntouskos (Greece)
It may appear strange that this Greek champion features on our Olympic underdog story, given he is the reigning champion in the men’s single scull from Tokyo. Since that iconic win on Japanese waters, Ntouskos has struggled to regain the form that saw him win gold, with his most promising results coming at consecutive European championships (two silver medals). His last outing in Lucerne for the second World Rowing Cup was a flat-out disaster; he won his heat only to finish last in his quarter-final and then withdraw from the D-final entirely. All that said, the 27-year-old is an agent of chaos – his best performances tend to emerge when he is under the gun and others wilt in the face of collective pressure. If anyone can upset the expected order – which is slated to be a who’s who of great rowing nations in Germany, New Zealand and the Netherlands – then it is this Grecian, whose godly status was sealed three years ago.
Women’s Single Scull – Tatsiana Klimovich (Individual Neutral Athletes)
Winning the World Rowing European Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta by a full ten seconds deserves some recognition and this sculler – of Belarusian descent – is certainly an athlete to watch. She was fourth at the second World Rowing Cup in late May, a full four weeks before her qualification attempt, meaning she is managing her peaks and troughs well. Although the podium feels sewn-up in this category – as alluded to on our podcast yesterday evening – Klimovich has a very good chance of breaking into that exclusive club. One only need to cast their eye back to Anna Prakaten, who burst onto the scene in extraordinary fashion in 2021 to win silver at the Tokyo Olympics. Klimovich will be seeking similar surges in speed.
Women’s Double Scull – Shuangmei Shen and Shiyu Lu (China)
Prior to the world championships, this combination had an extremely promising 2023 – they were winners at the second World Rowing Cup and bronze medalists at the third edition. Featuring Shiyu Lu – who finished fifth at the 2020 Olympics before getting pretty close to the podium in the women’s single in 2022 – this boat has bucket-loads of potential. A slightly damaging world championships at the end of 2023 – where they failed to make the A-final – may have knocked them off the punters radar but they were sixth at the second 2024 World Rowing Cup just two months ago, less than six seconds off the medal podium. This has been their only race to date in 2024 and I am confident the Chinese will have a trick or two up their sleeve come the opening heats on Saturday.
Men’s Double Scull – Jonas Gelsen and Marc Webber (Germany)
The German team has not had a very good Olympiad, exemplified by the fact that their two flagship boats – the men’s eight and women’s quad – seem unable to penetrate their respective podiums. This duo have been a marker of consistency though, regularly performing well at the World Rowing Cup regattas. Marc Weber was in the double in Rio – finishing 11th overall – whilst Jonas Gelsen was an U23 world champion in the single in 2022. The pairing have been trending in the right direction through the season, finishing fourth at the first World Rowing Cup before winning bronze at the Europeans and silver at the final World Rowing Cup of the season in Poznan. That is a trajectory to be feared and Germany have more reason than most to find added motivation when taking paddling out at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.
Women’s Four – Adriana Adam, Maria Lehaci, Maria Magdalena Rusu, Amalia Beres (Romania)
After the Romanians kept everyone guessing as to their true intentions around crew line-ups, their final selection has divided opinion. There is no doubting that their strongest athletes are littered across the four women’s crews they have racing in Paris. All of this crew won both the 2022 and 2023 world championships in the eight whilst Amalia Beres, Maria Lehaci and Maria Magdalena Rusu were silver medalists in the 2023 four. The inherent risk that this proud rowing nation are taking is obvious – all of their athletes are banking on a reduced program of racing (particularly in the bigger boats) and hoping for immediate progression through to finals after strong heat showings. If it goes as planned, this Romanian four are very dangerous on paper and they’ve proven they can punch hard on two fronts.
Men’s Eight – Ralf Rienks, Olav Molenaar, Sander De Graaf, Ruben Knab, Gert-Jan Van Doorn, Jacob Van De Kerkhof, Jan Van Der Bij, Mick Makker, Dieuwke Fetter (The Netherlands)
It feels surprising to elect this crew as dark horses. They are two-times silver medalists at the world championships in 2022 and 2023 and ran the British very close in Belgrade last summer with a fast-finishing finale. 2024 has been a little more underwhelming, which is perhaps why they arrive into Paris as outsiders looking in to the predictive nebula. They were beaten by an – admittedly very good – student/club crew from Oxford Brookes on home water and did not seem to have the same gas at the first World Rowing Cup as they did in September when eating up the distance between themselves and the Brits. The Dutch know how to win though, evidenced by the fact that they are Great Britain’s fiercest rivals for rowing supremacy on the global stage, and this crew will have been smarting from a season filled with relative mediocrity.
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