The first Lucerne medals were given out on a smoking hot Saturday afternoon, the lightweights taking their turn in the spotlight along with the mixed para fours, as the local dignitaries guzzled a lavish buffet lunch behind the medal rafts. The US won an uncompetitive PR3 fours race in a decently fast time, with Ukraine in second well ahead of Australia and Spain.
How to Watch World Rowing Cup III in Lucerne
Three of the lightweight events, both doubles and the LM1x, were won by countries targeting the lightweight events at this year’s Asian Games in late September. Japan took a brilliant LW2x gold, India the LM2x, and Hong Kong’s Chiu Hin Chun claimed his third world cup medal — and his first Lucerne win — in a class where he is now one of the most consistent performers. “The last couple of weeks I go through ups and downs, so this medal is very meaningful to me”, said Chiu.
However, all the LW1x medals went outside Asia with the ever-excellent Kenia Lechuga Alanis (MEX) collecting her second gold of the season, unhurried and well clear of second-placed Dutchwoman Femke van de Vliet who had barged past the rest of the field to claim silver. Lechuga motivated herself for the last 40 strokes of her race by thinking of her best friends, the Chilean W2- who had earlier won their semi, and to her late coach, Juan Cabrera Perez, who finished eighth in the single at the Rio 2016 Olympics, who died suddenly last December aged 34. “Ten for Meli, ten for Anto, ten for my coach, and ten for me”, she explained.
Later on the Olympic events began with singles, and continued with fast and furious racing in the pairs and doubles, USA Quinton and Molitor won their M2- semi just ahead of Greece after a scrambling sprint, with the Swedish nabbing third ahead of Kazakstan. In the other semi a fracas between Spain and Switzerland behind Australia 1 took the race out of reach for the British pair. Australia’s pairs stroke is the storied Alex Hill, who won his first rowing gold 15 years ago as a junior, and has a fistful of medals including world and Olympic gold. Now he’s in a new pair with Angus Dawson from the Australian eight and the two are settling in quickly. “We stepped on a bit from the heat, and will try to step on again tomorrow. We’re happy to be in the final”, Hill said.
USA 2 and Chile won the women’s semis: the first by a calm length but the South Americans holding their considerable nerve to lead a tight group of four crews across the line. This duo, Melita and Antonia Abraham, are half a family of Chilean quads born on the seventh of July 29 years ago, and who have been rowing (mostly together) for half their lives. Their brothers are already finished with their weekend’s racing, having come second in the M2x D-final earlier today. The US second pair on paper was impressive in reality, Regina Salmons and Mia Levy doing a professional job. “From yesterday to today we just wanted to nail our elements 1 percent better, and Regina called it amazingly, she’s a great bow seat”, said Levy, a fairly recent recruit to the senior team.
The women’s doubles turned the spice up a notch, the first semi a win for the cool Dutch while the Irish top duo beat Germany (by 0.14 seconds) and Ireland 2 to the punch behind the Netherlands. But the next race was even better, a three-way photofinish for second behind USA 1 shutting out the Swiss — to groans from the partisan crowd — and benefiting USA 2 and Poland. “It’s very hot out there, so just trying to keep it cool – keep your body cool, keep your head cool”, said Margaret Cremen from the IRL 1 double. “We’re just relieved to tick the box today, and looking forward to seeing what we can do in the final”.
The calmest small boats race was the second men’s doubles semi-final, at least for the first 1500 metres, as Britain’s Matt Haywood and Josh Knight had a stranglehold over the field, continuing their excellent debut on Friday. But then Portugal, the USA and Belgium came storming up to them, and Knight and Haywood had to charge with them for the final 75 metres to take the win. This is a great new combination at just the right time for GB Rowing. In the crunch Aaron Andries and Tibo Vyvey (BEL) were just ahead of Jacob Plihal/Cedar Cunningham (USA) for the other qualifying places. Serbia’s Nikolaj Pimenov and Martin Mackovic, beaten by GBR the day before, won the other semi-final just ahead of a big challenge from Spain. Uruguay, sixth in the GBR race, had to stop before the line as stroke Felipe Kluver Ferreira needed medical attention from the heat: he was sitting back up within a few minutes.
Day Two: World Rowing Cup III in Pictures
A change may be coming for the rowing world, as Belarus is already allowed to rejoin most international sports events, and it looks likely that the International Olympic Committee will permit Russia to do the same soon, though this isn’t likely to alter rowing rules during the World Rowing season. But in preparation for 2027 Belarussian athletes are now grouping into crews, of which there are six here plus the two single scullers, including a men’s eight and quad. All row in the nondescript grey kit which shows no national allegiance, and the quad qualified through second in the semis to join the eight and Zalaty in the medal races.
The rest of the quads story was fairly predictable, the German men’s quad holding off the resurgent British men with a solid sprint to clinch a central lane for Sunday’s final, alongside the Dutch M4x which was able to relax and watch the Australian/AIN battle behind them. Without Croatia here it won’t quite be a rerun of Seville’s results, but there are now several improving crews bidding for bronze behind what is likely to be a GER/NED. In that order because it looked as if the Germany/GBR race was not quite as balls to the wall as the Dutch run. “Yesterday we were pretty slow at the start and didn’t really manage to get through in the 1000, but now we focused on length and we were very much better and recovered it”, said Felix Heinrich, 2-seat of the German quad.
The fours fun was confined to the men on Saturday, the smaller women’s event having already built its finals menu during the heats. For the men’s semi-finals it was a question of whether Seville leaders France and Great Britain could continue their strong run in a tightly packed field. The answer was yes, with France well in control of their race before USA 1 started to make their run, Romania having left just slightly too late to finish higher than third in a photofinish. “We tried to go out far away from the others, and we managed [it]”, said Alistair Gicqueau from the French four. “Then we had to manage the US that came back during the middle k, and we just tried to maintain the first place. That was the goal”.
The second semi was a less frenetic affair, Britain’s 2025 world champions putting in a regal row from start to finish, relaxed and well clear of the Americans who pipped the Dutch to second in the last few strokes. The Brits’ smooth connection has a flavour of the 2012 GBR four (Andy Triggs Hodge, Tom James, Pete Reed and Alex Gregory) who set what stands as the world best time on this lake 14 years ago with an equally calm dominance.
Sunday’s finals look likely to be dominated by the big teams, with Britain and Germany having qualified 10 crews each to finals, 9 and 8 respectively for Australia and the Netherlands. But all four nations are outdone by a superb US effort, the Yanks having a stunning 14 crews in the Olympic finals, alongside their two medallists and sixth place from Saturday’s LM1x and para-four finals.
