Germany's Wedau Regatta Attracts Top Crews to Duisburg

© Wedau

This weekend Duisburg, Germany will be alive with over 1,500 athletes from 120 German clubs and composite crews racing alongside top rowers from 19 nations. In a country where rowing ranks as one of the strongest and most successful sports, this is Germany’s biggest regatta.

The regatta is unique in that heats and finals are raced on the same day and, due to the large number of entries, racing can start as early as 6am.

One of the most popular events is the UNI Cup (University Cup) for men’s eights where four local universities race each other in fours with the best two boats uniting to form an eight that will go on to race against international university crews. This year entries include university crews from Italy and Poland. Sponsored by local businesses, free bus transfers are given to students in the region, which has traditionally boosted crowds at the regatta into the thousands.

Some national crews are using the Wedau Regatta as a warm up for next week’s second World Cup in Munich. Canada and Ireland have both sent a large contingent while Great Britain is using the regatta to help select their Under-23 squad.

Olympic gold lightweight double hopefuls Sam Lynch and Gearoid Towey of Ireland will race the men’s double while Belarus’s top woman, Ekaterina Karsten lines up in the single. Top single sculler for the Netherlands, Dirk Lippits will also race at Duisburg before continuing onto Munich.

The highly prized ThyssenKrupp Cup for men’s eights features an eight-kilo globe of the world held by eight oars as the winning trophy.  This year the two-time World Champion Canadian men’s eight are in the running for this prize. They will go up against German, Polish and French crews as well as the winner of this year’s Cambridge-Oxford race ? Cambridge University from Great Britain. In an interesting international twist the President of the Cambridge boat will be Canadian Wayne Pommen.

Pommen competed in the pair at last year’s World Championships for Canada with partner Scott Frandsen, but this year Pommen will row against his former team mate Frandsen who sits in seven seat of the Canadian boat.

The Wedau Regatta rotates every second year between Duisburg and Essen and in Duisburg it is rowed on one of the first ever man-made rowing courses that dates back to 1927.

The weather is expected to be fine with temperatures around 20 degrees Celsius.

For more information: http://www.wedau-rowing.com

The World Rowing Media team values any feedback it receives from its readers.