Iran surprises at Asian rowing champs

Chung-Ju, South Korea, put their best foot forward hosting the 12th Asian Championships combined with the 13th Asian Junior Championships and 1st Asian Adaptive Rowing Championships. At the end of racing an encouraging distribution of medals had been won by the 18 countries attending with Iran’s new rowing programme shining through.

Led by former Romanian coach, Nick Gioga, Iran’s fledgling rowing programme raced to three gold and three silver medals placing them in the top three overall on the medals table. Gioga has been with Iranian rowing just six months. Some of Iran’s team have only been rowing since June.

Gioga is especially proud of Mohsem Shady, winner of the lightweight men’s single. “The 19 year old boy has only been rowing four months,” says Gioga. “He grew up as a farmer and had never practiced sport before, just digging the land and looking after domestic animals. His nickname is Ociuz Bekashe – strong as a bullock.”

FISA’s development consultant for Asia, Chris Perry, described the races as very competitive in the Olympic events especially the men’s single and men’s lightweight double despite missing the Chinese and Japanese Olympic rowers. China instead sent their top provincial rowers which included some former national team members.

“I think many crews were using the event as part of their build-up for the Asian Olympic Qualification Regatta, which will be held in Shanghai during April 2008,” said Perry. “Many of the South East Asian countries were also using the event as a build-up for the SEA (South East Asian) Games which will be held in Thailand later this year.”

Perry was impressed by the Iranian results. “Whilst Iran has been successful over the years in Asian canoeing, its rowing programme is extremely new. The first appearance by Iranian crews was at the Doha Asian Games in 2006. They were certainly the ‘dark horses’ of these championships.”

Veteran Thai sculler, Phuttaraska Nikree showed excellent form as she builds up for the SEA Games. "Pak", as she is known to everyone, raced in the open double, lightweight double and lightweight single winning medals in all three events. Perry believes Pak has probably won more medals at this level than almost any other athlete in Asia.

Amongst the youngest entrants were athletes from Qatar. The Qatar Federation have began implementing a junior development programme since hosting the Asian Games in 2006 and Perry commented that whilst their rowers are still very young and inexperienced, the country was making a good effort to develop from the grass-roots for the future.

Chung-Ju plans to bid for the 2013 World Rowing Championships and the organisers used this event to showcase their venue.

The Asian Senior Championships take place every two years and the 2009 venue is still to be confirmed. Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore have all made expressions of interest. The Asian Junior Championship are held every year and will be hosted by Hong Kong in 2008.

Results

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