Wind alters Tunisia rowing regatta

The Tunis Lake International Rowing Regatta in Tunis, Tunisia, is becoming a regular fixture on the rowing calendar and last weekend it was held for the fourth time. Athletes came from Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Kuwait, Italy, Great Britain and Tunisia to race in warm weather on Tunis Lake.

The initial race schedule was to have a 500m sprint regatta on the first day followed by 2000m racing on day two. But strong winds on the second day forced organisers to adjust the planned schedule. 

Organiser Faycal Soula described the weather: “On the first day the weather was good and the wind was acceptable to row but on the second day there was a lot of wind and we organised the races on the indoor rowing machine Concept 2 over 2000m.” As well as individual 2000m pieces, Soula said they added a 4x500m indoor rowing race with mixed crew from each country.”

On the first day of 500m racing, the women’s single was won by Tunisia’s Olympic sculler Ibtissem Trimech while Magdy Mohamoud Abdel Hameed of Egypt impressed in the men’s single with a nine second win over Tunisia’s Sahbi Khardeni.

Egypt also scored in the men’s 2000m erg race with Nour Eddin Mohamed Hassanen finishing in 5’59” with British rower, Emma Cockcroft from Wales, recording the fastest women’s time of 7’12”.

Overall Tunisia easily topped the medals table winning 11 of the 20 events over the two days of racing.

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