World Rowing Championships Aftermath

Slovenia's top rowers Spik and Cop – gold and silver at the World Champs

By Melissa Bray

Containers full of boats are now at sea heading, ultimately, to over 50 destinations. For the first time in the history of the World Rowing Championships, the event was held in an Asian country and marked the beginning of the Olympic cycle that will culminate in Beijing, China in 2008.

Slipping fortuitously in between two typhoons, the 2005 World Rowing Championships began with the threat of typhoon Mawar which saw the entire course being removed and all temporary structures and boats being stored away. The typhoon luckily changed course and kept its distance but racing was delayed by one day.

At the other end of racing a second typhoon, Nabi, summoned tired organisers back to the Nagaragawa International Regatta Course for a speedy removal of all non-permanent fixtures.

At the completion of the two days of finals Italy laid claim to the Team Trophy, ranking them at the top of the medals table. The Italian's took away ten medals, two of them gold. Behind Italy the United States finished second including gold in the men's eight and the adaptive rowing mixed double. Australia and Germany finished third equal.

Welcome home for the triumphant New Zealand team

The number one and two positions by number of gold medals at these championships both went downunder. Australia and New Zealand won four gold medals each. Australia also won a bronze and sliver medal earning them the top overall ranking on the medal table. Great Britain ranked third with three gold medals.

Returning home, the New Zealand team celebrated their most successful Championships in the history of their nations rowing. The unprecedented four gold medals were won in the space of 45 minutes and completely outshined the total of nine medals won by their country in the 43 years of the World Championships.

The seven New Zealand gold athletes ? Mahe Drysdale (M1x), Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh (W2-), Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell (W2x) and Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater (M2-) ? will now add NZ$40,000 each to their income.

Australia women's eight celebrate a long awaited gold

Australia's win in the women's eight was heralded as laying ?demons to rest? for the team that made more headlines after the Athens Olympics than any other news story when one of their team members stopped rowing before the finish line in the Olympic final.

Winners of the men's eight, the United States went home to receive honours as USAToday.com's US Olympic Athlete of the week. The award usually goes to an individual, but this time nine men shared the honour ? Beau Hoopman, Bryan Volpenhein, Josh Inman, Dan Beery, Mike Blomquist, Steven Coppola, Matt Deaken, Paul Daniels and coxswain Marcus McElhenney. They are the largest group ever to share this title.

US men's eight receive honours

Meanwhile, United States coach of the silver medal lightweight women's double, Ted Nash, took a detour from Japan to do his own international racing. Nash joined teammates at the World Rowing Masters Regatta in Scotland last weekend to race on the 1,000 metre Strathclyde course.

Finnish rowing celebrated when the bronze medal won by Sanna Sten and Minna Nieminen in the lightweight women's double gave their nation the first showing on the medals podium in 18 years. The last time Finland celebrated was in 1987 when Pertti Karppinen was dominating the men's single.

Taking two medals each Iztok Cop and Luka Spik of Slovenia won the men's double then returned the following day to win silver in the quad with teammates Davor Mizerit and Matej Prelog. Since Slovenia became independent in 1991 there have been 18 medals won with Cop being part of 13 of them.

Nichols and Hykel win silver for the US and their coach Ted Nash

Winner of the lightweight men's single Vasileios Polymeros got back to find a congratulatory telegram waiting for him from Greece's Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. Polymeros became the first Greek to win a World Champion title in rowing. This comes on top of Polymeros being the first Greek to win an Olympic rowing medal when he finished with bronze (lightweight men's double with Nikos Skiathitis) at Athens.

The day after racing finished, delegates from more than 56 countries came together for the annual FISA Congress. Discussion included issues arising from the 2005 World Rowing Championships including the future of the lightweight men's eight event.

The Congress agreed to vote at next year's Congress on the continuation of the lightweight men's eight.

As only two boats were entered at these World Championships, FISA President Denis Oswald had addressed a press conference earlier in the week stating; ?This is the first time that this has happened (two entries) so we will now have to reconsider (the future of the event).?

Oswald added, ?We want World Championship titles which are the result of a reasonable fight between nations.?

Ghezzi and Gattinoni add silver in the men's double to Italy's collection of ten medals.

The flow of current on the Nagaragawa International Regatta Course stimulated debate on the setting of World Best times. During the World Championships a number of boats went faster than the present World Best times. The situation was revised and a decision not to consider the new times was decided by the FISA Council on recommendation of FISA's Athletes Commission.

The amount of current that is allowed before a World Best time can be set is now to be reconsidered. This will involve analysis of regatta courses and a decision will be made on what will be deemed a ?significant water mass flow?. For a list of World Best times click here.

The next World Rowing Championships will be held on Dorney Lake in Eton, Great Britain from 20 August 2006.

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