Budapest Cup Regatta draws record numbers

This year’s Budapest Cup Regatta, established in 2011, broke records by attracting over 550 rowers from ten countries, including Serbia, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and Great Britain.

The aim of the event was to raise awareness of rowing in Hungary, to better connect East and Central Europe with western rowing communities and to introduce head racing for eights to Hungary. The rowers had the chance to compete on a naturally formed 4,500m course starting from Óbuda Island and finishing at Margaret Island. The weather was kind to both athletes and spectators with the sun shining throughout the day.

The quality of the racing showed marked improvement. This year’s senior men’s winners LIA from Austria, included some of the Austrian junior national team and they beat last year’s winners Gyor Rowing Club from Hungary. British club, Thames Rowing Club was third in the senior men’s category.

A composite crew of some of Hungary’s best junior rowers, formed from MEC, Csepel and Szeged, took the overall silver medal ahead of Gyor, and finished just slightly behind overall winner LIA.

Other entries include world indoor para-rowing champion Szabolcs Szokolics and visually-impaired rowers from SC Armida, Torino, Italy. The youngest competitor was 14 and the oldest 73.

Rowers also attended a welcome dinner at the InterContinental Budapest hotel and finished the hard racing day with an after party at Budapest’s most famous club, Otkert.

The organisers together with the rowers attending the regatta and donors from India, Great Britain, Hungary, United States, Serbia, Germany, Italy and Austria raised over 100,000 HUF for UNICEF, with the majority of the crews racing in t-shirts to raise awareness of the Budapest Cup for UNICEF campaign in support of children around the world.

The regatta was organised by Danubius National Boat Club, the last survivor of 11 rowing clubs which used to be based on Margaret Island, and co-hosted by the Hungarian Rowing Association. 

The Budapest Cup Regatta is the second leg of the Capital Cup Regatta series, a joint initiative for connecting rowers of the region. This 2015/2016 series started in Zagreb 2015 November and will finish with the WienerAchter in May, 2016.