Whether the heat, the humidity or some other factor, there were more medical withdrawals on Saturday to add to that of Benjamin Pritchard (PR1 M1x reigning Paralympic and European champion). Ryuta Arakawa (JPN) pulled out of the M1x D-final, Laura Gourley (AUS) out of the women’s 1x C-final, and Mexico’s Angeles Gutierrez from the PR2 women’s single.
That left former sitting volleyball player Thyra Kiewik rowing the PR2 W1x final alone. For the German, rowing solo to claim gold in her first international final was the most difficult aspect of the afternoon: she has settled confidently into rowing after attending a World Rowing intensive training camp earlier this year.
On similarly strong form was Irish PR2 sculler Tiarnan O’Donnell, who won his own first-ever gold a race later, beating Uzbekistan’s Diyorbek Boybolsinov and Turk Yigit Dogukan Bozkurt to the top medal. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to get the gold,” he said afterwards. “I’ve been competing internationally for ten years, in wheelchair basketball and now in rowing, and I’ve never come first in anything, it’s either been bronze or silver. So this morning I was like ‘that has to change’. It means a lot”.
The racers had a better time of it in the afternoon, a chirpy strengthening tailwind making it cooler out on the lake, under the heat haze hanging in the air, but without causing too much in the way of choppy water. No super-fast times (yet) but good quick races until the wind veered more cross-tail in the final hour.
“That was the fastest eight I’ve ever been a part of”
Caleb Nollenberger
The Dutch have jumped into smaller boats for the World Cup after a big-boat Europeans. This meant double Dutch scullers in the men’s single, Simon van Dorp going up against Melvin Twellaar. Not literally (yet) – since both have Paris 2024 sculling medals they were drawn into different heats and ended in different semi-finals. But the two of them won those semi-finals to set up a delicious final where they will clearly be the ones to beat.
Van Dorp was given NED1 status, an Olympic singles bronze outclassing a doubles silver, but it was Twellaar as NED2 who went two seconds quicker in his semi slowing up, the second time this weekend he has beaten his team-mate on raw time. Even if this is just a training tactic, it worked its magic on the rather variable quality men’s field, upping the competitiveness across both races.
The lack of a Dutch sculler with Karolien Florijn absent would have been felt in the women’s singles semis, were it not for two features. The first was seven of the top eight scullers in the heats being within five seconds of one another, which led to nobody being able to let up during the semis. And the second feature was the presence of Briton Lauren Henry, yet again clawing chunks out of her opposition. Thanks to a second half of the race where she was consistently rowing 1 km per hour quicker than anyone else, despite even-splitting, she drew out a 17-second lead over Liu Ruiqi, and was 12 seconds faster than the other semi winner, 2020 Olympic silver medallist Anna Prakatan (UZB). Prakatan also led all the way but had to sprint hard at the end to hold off a late charge from Germany’s Juliane Faralisch.
“I’m really scared because I think the lightweights are going to disappear”
Kenia Lechuga Alanis
Another sculler, Kenia Lechuga Alanis has been competing internationally since 2012 and domestically for nearly two decades, but winning the LW1x final on Saturday gave the Mexican a much-wanted first ever gold medal. She led the whole length of the lake, the sun starting to peek through the haze and glisten on the water again, seemingly in celebration of her victory. “I’m so excited,” she said afterwards. “Nineteen years in rowing and my first gold in a rowing event.” But there are dangers ahead. “I’m really scared because I think the lightweights are going to disappear, maybe”.
Another grinning champion was Laurent Cadot, finally taking his first sweep gold in three years in the PR3 men’s pairs, with youngster Grigoire Bireau to haul him along. “We have 20 years between us,” said Bireau. “But it’s a good thing to train with [Laurent], he’s a good man, good feeling for the boat”. “It’s very important to transmit the courage and skill to the new generation, I am very happy,” said Cadot. “When I was young the older people would train me in the right way, now I can do it too”.
Paralympic reclassification for some was renewed the day before the regatta started, adding an extra edge of nerves for Hermine Krumbein, of the German PR3 Mx2x. “Always some kind of stress because you have to prepare all the documents, and you hear stories about other athletes where it does not go well,” she said after claiming gold with Jan Helmich. “None of the crews here were at the Europeans, so we didn’t have any benchmarks going into it, it was kind of ‘cat in the bag’” said Helmich. “So in the heat we were trying to gauge who’s got what in the tank, and today we were going all in”.
Although the lightweight men’s singles was won by former U23 champion Felipe Kluvier Ferreira of Uruguay, the story of that race as far as the home crowd was concerned was the battle between the Borgonovo brothers from Italy. Even the TV cameras focused on little brother Luca’s succcessful fight to claim bronze by shooting past Peter Strecansky of Slovakia near the line, while big brother Giovanni was sixth but only two seconds off the rest of the field. Fortunately last year’s Lucerne winner Hin Chun Chiu was still grinning fit to bust even though he could only add silver to his trophy cupboard this time.
The day rounded off with three mixed eights racing a test event: rowing finally dipping its toe in the mixed-gender competitions, several years after most other Olympic sports have adopted them. The USA, Italy and Germany raced a brilliant 2km, Germany nearly seizing gold off the Americans but being denied it by a surge from the US engine room, formed from the two US men’s doubles. The women’s half was the W2- (stern pair) and W2x (bow pair), while the Germans merged half their men’s eight, a quarter of their women’s eight, and 50% of their women’s quad together.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to get the gold”
Tiarnan O’Donnell
“It is not to replace other eights,” said World Rowing President Jean-Christophe Rolland. It will however be on the programme at the second world cup, and also at the Shanghai world championships and might well form part of a future Olympic racing plan. The point is that since everyone in the mixed eights must already be competing at the regatta, it gives options to new countries. “This way it is possible for smaller nations who cannot make an eight [usually], to try the event,” said Rolland.
It’s fair to say the athletes loved it. “To hop in the same boat and race was great,” said US cox Cristina Castagna. “Easy to call on [the men] for a little bit more when the Germans made a fantastic push”. “There was a lot of energy at the start from all three boats,” said rower Holly Drapp, “you could tell it was something new and everyone was excited to do it. And it was fun going down the course that fast! We did 8km yesterday, and today was our second time out.”
“It was absolutely electric,” said Cedar Cunningham, from the powerhouse seats. “That was the fastest eight I’ve ever been a part of,” crewmate and fellow sculler Caleb Nollenberger added, his team-mates agreeing. “Women bring a great energy, offset a lot of the super-tough energy we bring, they keep it light, keep it lively, it was a fun race,” said Cunningham. “It was cool to be able to get in a boat with people that we’ve been training with for years,” said Nollenberger. “Always side by side, always see them out on the water, but never get to row with them, so super-unique in that regard”. That’s a thumbs-up then.
