Rowing debut at Paralympics marks one year to go

Last week at the World Rowing Championships adaptive rowers raced for Paralympic qualification. This week Beijing, China celebrates one year to go to the start of the 2008 Paralympic Games. Adaptive rowing debuts at these games.

Attending the one-year-to-go celebrations will be President of the International Paralympic Committee, IPC, Sir Philip Craven. So will movie star Jackie Chan. The new Beijing Sports Vocational Training Centre for the Disabled will be inaugurated.

Adaptive rowing at the Games has a quota of 96 athletes – 48 males, 48 females. They will race in four events; the arms only men’s single (AM1x), arms only women’s single (AW1x), trunk and arms mixed double sculls (TA2x) and the legs, trunk and arms mixed coxed four (LTAMx4+). Coxswains for the latter event are considered able bodied and therefore outside the quota. Intellectually disabled rowers will not be included at the Paralympic Games.

A maximum of 12 qualification spots for the Paralympics are available per event with the top nine from last week’s World Rowing Championships qualifying. The first two finishers in each event at the 2008 final Paralympic qualification regatta (9 – 11 May 2008) will qualify directly for the Paralympics. The remaining places will be allocated at FISA and IPCs discretion.

Last week’s results led to the following countries qualifying boats for the 2008 Paralympic Games.

AW1x – Arms only women's single
Brazil (Claudia Santos)
Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, Great Britain, United States, Italy, Canada, China

AM1x – Arms only men's single
Great Britain (Tom Aggar)
Australia, Israel, France, United States, Canada, China, Italy, Hungary

TA2x – Trunk and arms mixed double sculls
Brazil (Lucas Pagani, Josiane Lima)
Australia, Poland, Italy, United States, Ukraine, China, Great Britain, Canada

LTAMx4+ – Legs, trunk and arms mixed coxed four
Germany (Kathrin Wolfe, Marcus Klemp, Michael Sauer, Susanne Lacker, Arne Maury (cox)
Great Britain, Canada, Italy, United States, the Netherlands, Russia, Brazil, Israel