Croatia Open signals a new rowing season

Start line at the Croatia Open

The arrival of spring means rowing at the Croatia Open and last weekend early season racing kicked off at Zagreb’s Lake Jarun Course for the 23rd edition of this regatta.

1259 rowers in 666 crews representing 10 countries (Austria, Hungary, Israel, Estonia, Turkey, Greece, Slovenia, Slovakia, Serbia & Montenegro and Croatia) raced over the two days with perfect weather on Saturday followed by some head wind conditions on Sunday.

Damir Haluzan of the Zagreb rowing association updated FISA with these notes:

On Saturday the senior men’s single featured Luka Spik from Slovenia who won this event ahead of Slovakia’s Lubos Podstupka and Austrian Ralph Kreibich.

The senior men’s pair also showed Slovenian strength with Tomaz Pirih and Rok Kolander finishing ahead of Hrvoje Maric and Oliver Martinov of Croatia. Third place went to Serbia and Montenegro’s Goran Todorovic and Goran Popovic.

In the senior women’s single, last year’s under-23 champion, Iva Obradovic of Serbia & Montenegro won ahead of Majda Jerman of Slovenia and Croatia’s Sonja Keserac.

The biggest event, the junior men’s single (64 crews) was won by Croatian rower Damir Martin who placed fourth last year in the four at the World Rowing Junior Championships. Behind Martin was Andraz Krek from Slovenia (last year finallist in the single at the World Rowing Junior Championships) and third went to Austria’s Alexander Ausserwoger.

On Sunday Jerman managed to improve in the women’s single beating Obradovic with Kaisa Pajusalu of Estonia finishing third.

Moving from the single to the double for the second day of racing, Slovenia’s Matej Prelog and Miha Pirih took first in the men’s senior double followed by Mario Vekic and Davorin Sindler of Croatia. Third went to Slovakians Lubos Podstupka and Maros Sloboda.

In the men’s four first place went to Croatia (Branimir Vujevic, Oliver Martinov, Hrvoje Maric and Josip Stojcevic) in front of Slovenia (Rok Kolander, Tomaz Pirih, Bostjan Bozic and Luka Spik). Spik filled in for an injured Gregor Novak, racing in a discipline outside his usual sculling specialty.

Full results can be found at: www.vsz.hr

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