High stakes for first Rowing World Cup of 2008
Record entries for the first Rowing World Cup in Munich
(GER) mean that 54 countries will take part in this first
World Rowing event of the Olympic season. In total, 840 competitors
will compete in 371 boats. This count includes the 32 adaptive
boats that shall race for the final qualifying spots for the
first-ever Paralympic rowing events in Beijing this September.
As one would expect, the highest number of crews entered come
from the host country. Germany is sending 27 crews and will
be represented in all but two boat classes. Following their
National Championships two weeks ago, this first Rowing World
Cup event is another chance for Germany to fine tune their
selections and try out some crews which were put together
recently. All this with one specific goal: finding the best
combinations to represent their country at the Olympic Games
later this summer.
The same strategy will be followed by most nations present,
as this will be the first chance of the season to not only
check out the international competition, but also to try out
the chosen line-ups and confirm the selection decisions made
earlier this year.
Some countries however, such as Cyprus (M1x), Lithuania (M1x),
Portugal (M2-, LM2x, LM4-), Slovakia (M2x, LM2x) and Turkey
(LM2x) will no doubt be using this regatta as practice for
the final qualification regatta in Poznan, Poland - their
last chance for a 2008 Olympic spot.
Amongst the already qualified crews for the Games, Colombia,
Monaco and Venezuela will be trying to get as much practice
in as possible, as their Olympic participation will be the
first for their country in rowing, and therefore has an even
more historic flavour to it than for some of the more "accustomed"
nations.
The Munich Rowing World Cup regatta, as well as the next
two Rowing World Cup regattas in Lucerne (SUI) and Poznan
(POL) will bear particularly high stakes this year. Results
at these three regattas, as well as last year's qualification
World Rowing Championships, will be taken into consideration
by FISA's seeding committee when placing boats in heats for
the Olympic Regatta. With so much to gain from a good performance,
the racing during this year's Rowing World Cup series promises
to be highly competitive.
Also worth mentioning is the participation of the most recently
qualified crews from the Asian qualification event which took
place last week-end in China. The Chinese men's single sculler
and the Japanese lightweight women's double fly in to Munich
having only just recovered from their regatta in Shanghai
and have a good chance to achieve some excellent results here
next week-end.
It goes without saying that most of the top rowing nations
will compete in Munich. Worth noting is the absence of New
Zealand's single sculler Mahe Drysdale, whose pre-season national
qualification ordeal was highly publicised by rowing media
back in March. Drysdale is the only one missing among this
year's 38-strong field of single scullers from last year's
World Championship final, giving the chance to world silver
medallist Ondrej Synek, world bronze medallist Olaf Tufte
or even Britain's young single sculling talent Alan Campbell
to secure a gold at this event.
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