African rowers race

It may be head racing and winter training in much of the world but African rowers have been able to enjoy continued racing with the West African and the Arab Rowing Championships.

The 8th Arab Rowing Championships recently took place in Alexandria, Egypt. Eight countries participated including Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Iraq and Kuwait.

The biggest number of entries was in the men’s single and lightweight men’s single. Athletes raced in balmy temperatures in the high 20s Celsius with no wind on the first day of finals and a head wind rising for day two of finals.

Of the 18 events raced, Egypt medalled in all 18 finishing with 12 golds and at the top of the medals table. Tunisia came in second with five golds and Iraq in third with one gold. Iraq’s one gold came in the men’s single with Haider Nozad being the recipient. The versatile Nozad also scored medals in the men’s pair and double and the men’s four.

Algeria and Libya also made it onto the medals table. Algeria finished with four silvers and eight bronzes while Libya took out a bronze in the women’s double.

Meanwhile over on the Ivory Coast in Abidjan, the first ever West African Rowing Championships took place.

On the first of three days of racing, the men's and women's singles raced over distances of 500m, on the second day 1000m and finished off the third day with 200m mixed women's and men's double racing. Crews competed from Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Senegal on Cocody Bay in the Plateau Area of Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s biggest city.

The rowing events took place on the same course as the 6th African Canoe Championships. FISA’s development consultant for French speaking Africa, Michel Doutre, said he was glad that the event was able to take place stating: “This is the first international rowing competition this year for many of these crews.”

Sheila Stephens Desbans, FISA’s development manager explained, “The International Canoe Federation, the African Canoe Federation and the Ivory Coast Canoe and Rowing Federation were open to the idea of including a rowing event with the African Championships for Canoe so we went ahead on short notice with organising the event.  We are very appreciative of the opportunity to collaborate with canoe on this event and we were happy with this first time West African event.”

The World Rowing team values feedback.