German Juniors Excel at Brandenburg

Lisa and Melanie Baues win silver for Germany

By Melissa Bray

The flags have come down. The boat park has cleared. The grandstand is quiet. The 2005 World Rowing Junior Championships in Brandenburg, Germany finished off with the German flag getting worn out by the number of times it went up and down the winner's flagpole.

Germany has always featured prominently at the junior level and this year was no exception. Of the 13 events a German boat was in every final race, bar one, and at the end of finals day they had medals in all 12 ? four of them gold. Italy and Romania were also on and off the medals dais showing significant power in the sweep events with gold medals in the men's and women's pair and men's four.

Romania's Timpau and Moisa become champions

Romania's gold medal men's four and pair joined up in their eight and added a bronze to their collection in a photo finish with Germany. But it was the United States that won the event, picking up the only medal for their country at the event.

Italy also featured prominently, collecting medals in six of the finals. They also managed to pass the highly favoured German men's quad at the line in one of the closest races of the day.

Palma, Rosetti, Boschelli and Messina win for Italy in the quad

Casting aside the German-Romanian-Italian blockade, Serbia & Montenegro's Milan Uzunovic left the rest of the men's singles field far off in his wake and completed his 2005 mission of achieving gold at his fourth Junior Championships. New Zealand also broke through the blockade and reached the top spot of the women's single winner's dais when Emma Twigg outclassed even the favoured Gisella Bascelli of Italy. Twigg's win also earned her a 10 year sponsorship deal and comparisons to her country's Olympic Champions, Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell.

Twigg, the fastest woman

Competitors at the championships ranged in age from 13 year old Andrea Maccanti, coxswain of Italy's men's eight through to 18 year olds, in their last year as a junior. Maccanti started in the sport when he was just nine and is an example of the depth in Italian junior rowing.

Countries with new rowing programmes featured in many of the small boat events including single sculler, Aleksandar Ivanovski of the Former Yugloslav Republic of Macedonia. The youngest rower at the championships, Wilson Owuor Midenga from Kenya, 14, is part of the ongoing development of Kenyan rowing. Midenga raced in the men's double.

13 year old Maccanti coxing for Italy

Of the 141 boats entered, the biggest rise in entries in recent years was seen in the men's double and single with a small increase in all of the women's events especially the women's quad.

Next year the World Rowing Junior Championships will move to Amsterdam, the Netherlands from 2 ? 5 August.

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