Press Release - 2005 World Rowing Championships - Gifu, Japan ? 28 August to 4 September 2005

The Rowing World turns to Asia

Over 800 athletes in 319 crews from 56 nations have been entered in the 2005 World Rowing Championships of the International Rowing Federation, FISA. The Championships, which take place from 28 August to 4 September in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, will not only include the 23 traditional boat classes, but also three adaptive rowing events which will be raced on 2 and 3 September.

The highest number of crews has been entered by the United States, with 21 crews, followed closely by Germany (20 crews), Italy (19 crews) and Great Britain (18 crews). Crews from eleven Asian countries have also been entered including Hong Kong China, Indonesia, India, Korea, Philippines, Palestine, Singapore, Thailand, Uzbekistan as well as host country Japan. Japan has entered a remarkable 15 crews. In the individual boat classes, the highest numbers of entries come in the men's single scull and the lightweight men's double sculls, with 25 boats entered in each of these two boat classes.

The high quality line-ups include women's single favourite Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus, yet unbeaten in 2005. The four time Olympian Karsten will be up against this season's top contenders in the single, Czech Republic's Mirka Knapkova, Sophie Balmary of France (second in Lucerne) as well as Australia's Kerry Hore, who recently moved to the single from the women's quad.

The men's single looks to be once again the race of the greats, with Olympic champion Olaf Tufte of Norway, Germany's Marcel Hacker, and the Czech Republic's newcomer Ondrej Synek contending for the World Champion spot. Also worth a mention is this year's Under 23 Champion in the single Sjoerd Hamburger from the Netherlands who, with two World Cup events under his belt this year, is attempting his first go at the Senior World Rowing Championships.

With four of the top 2004 Olympic nations, including three of the top four crews, the men's pair is set to be a very interesting event. Australia, who took gold in Athens have replaced the legendary Ginn and Tomkins pair and come back with Christian Ryan and Karsten Fosterling. They will be up against Athens silver medallists, the Croatia's Skelin brothers, Athens bronze medallists Donovan Cech and Ramon Di Clemente of South Africa and 4th place in Athens Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater of New Zealand.

These are the first World Rowing Championships since the International Paralympic Committee announced the inclusion of adaptive rowing in the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games. Entries this year include a total of 15 crews totalling 42 rowers.

The event takes place at the Nagaragawa International Regatta Course centrally situated at the very heart of Japan, two hours from Tokyo, one from Osaka and 20 minutes from Nagoya by bullet train. The 10 lane, buoyed fresh water course is on the Nagara River and was first opened in 1998. This is the first time since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics that an international rowing event has been in Japan and the first time the World Rowing Championships have been hosted by an Asia nation.

Visit the official World Rowing website www.worldrowing.com, for a full list of entries, a racing timetable as well as an extensive boat class preview. During racing, this website will provide live scoring, interviews, press releases, start lists and full results.

Live transmission of the finals can be watched from outside of Europe through the www.worldrowing.com website. Within Europe various terrestrial channels such as BBC, ZDF, France 2/3, NRK and ETV will show the regatta ? see your local TV listings for more information. Eurosport will show racing highlights from 9:30 to 10:30 am CET every day from 1 to 3 September and from 9:00 to 10:30 on 4 September.

Click here to access:

Provisional timetable
Entries by Event
Number of entries by NOC

You can also download the World Championships media guide from the Media downloads page on www.worldrowing.com

For more information contact Marion Gallimore at FISA
Tel: +41.21.612.02.26 E-mail: marion.gallimore@fisa.org

About BearingPoint

BearingPoint, Inc., (NYSE:BE), one of the world's largest business consulting and systems integration firms, is sponsoring the International Rowing Federation's (FISA's) rowing season for the third year. As one of the world's largest consulting companies, BearingPoint provides business consulting, system integration and managed services to Global 2000 companies, for medium-sized firms as well as for government agencies and other organizations. BearingPoint ? the name is the mission: by aligning their clients' business processes and information systems, BearingPoint helps its customers access the right information at the right time, empowering them to create enterprise value. Based in McLean, Va., BearingPoint has been named by Fortune as one of America's Most Admired Companies in the computer and data services sector. The corporation employs approximately 16,000 individuals operating in 52 countries. BearingPoint Germany leads the global company's commitment to the sport of rowing.
For more information, visit the Company's website at www.BearingPoint.com.

For more information on BearingPoint GmbH contact Sabine Theis
T: +49 69 13022-1676, F: +49 69 13022-1190, E-mail : sabine.theis@bearingpoint.com