Spotlight on the women’s single

These rowers are the individuals of the sport. They like to row to their own beat and enjoy the independence and flexibility that comes with rowing by yourself in a single scull. The women’s single scull is one of four “Blue Riband” events of the Rowing World Cup season.

Rowing in the single means coping with hour after hour of training on your own. You are solely responsible for your actions and with that a certain personality is attracted to this lone boat. It also attracts those who, out of circumstances, have found the single to be the best option. This is by-and-large the case for the current top woman single sculler in the world, Ekaterina Karsten-Khodotvitch of Belarus.

Karsten has a huge two decades of international rowing under her belt and the majority of that time Karsten has been in the single. Karsten’s coach and husband is German Wilfried Karsten and Karsten spends the majority of her time training not in her home country of Belarus, but in Potsdam, Germany. She often travels with her family, which includes her 12 year old daughter, Alexandra.

Karsten won her first international medal in the single in 1990 as a junior. She rowed at her first Olympic Games, in 1992, in a quad, but since then Karsten has rowed almost exclusively in the single. During her career, she has won two Olympic Champion and six World Champion titles. Karsten comes into the 2010 season as the reigning World Champion and current Oly.mpic bronze medallist. 

Over the years her two biggest rivals have been Kathrin Rutschow-Stomporoski (Germany) and Rumyana Neykova of Bulgaria. Rutschow-Stomporoski is retired and Neykova is not competing this year with a question mark over her future. This means a new regular threat to Karsten’s domination is still to be found. Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic has come close to Karsten but never managed to beat her in the final sprint.

Emma Twigg of New Zealand and the experienced Julia Levina of Russia look like they can be a threat to Karsten but have yet to beat her at the finish line. Levina, 37, is a bit taller than Karsten and has international experience going back to 1995. Although Levina has spent the majority of her career in the quadruple scull, in recent years Levina has appeared more often than not in the single. In Munich, at the second stage of the 2010 Rowing World Cup, Levina finished second to Karsten.

Bin Tang of China gave it a good go at the first stage of the Rowing World Cup in Bled in May, finishing third behind Karsten and Twigg. Tang comes out of her country’s 2008 Olympic Champion quadruple sculls and at Bled, Tang finished third behind Karsten and Twigg. But whether Tang stays in the single or gets pulled into a team boat is yet to be determined.

Many of these scullers will race at the third and final stage of the 2010 Rowing World Cup in Lucerne, Switzerland. Heats will get under way on Friday 9 July with finals on Sunday 11 July.

The World Rowing team values feedback.