14 Dec 2011
Tenth Rowing World Cup season ends next week-end in Lucerne, Switzerland
In total, 330 crews, from 41 countries have entered with a breakdown of 216 men’s crews and 114 women’s crews. With a massive entry of 876 athletes (over 100 more than entered in the second stage in Amsterdam earlier this month), the regatta will provide an extremely competitive field for any team fine tuning their line-ups or making decisions about selection for the pinnacle event of the season, the 2007 World Rowing Championships in Munich at the end of August.
Following years of European domination in the Rowing World Cup, China created quite a stir, when they snatched 10 medals while acquiring 58 World Cup points in Amsterdam. This time, however, China have only entered one boat, the women’s single, so it will be back to current overall leader Great Britain (102 points) and Germany (79 points) to battle for the highly sought after Overall World Cup crystal trophy. Germany has 21 boats entered in World Cup events, where Great Britain only has 16, so competition looks to be tight.
The men’s single will be the race to watch after reigning World Champion Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand got beaten out of the medals last month. He will be back to reestablish his dominance but will have to contend with an ever-improving field. Australia’s finest, Drew Ginn and Duncan Free are due to get their 2007 season going in the men’s pair and they will be looking to topple winners of the second World Cup, New Zealand’s Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater.
Also in Lucerne next week-end, the Thomas Keller Medal will be awarded to one of five finalists selected by the Thomas Keller Medal committee. The selected finalists are France’s Jean-Christophe Rolland , Mike McKay of Australia, Constantina Burcica of Romania, New Zealand’s Rob Waddell and Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski of Germany.
The “Thomi” is the highest medal awarded in rowing and goes to recently retired rowers, recognising an exceptional rowing career as well as exemplary sportsmanship.
The 18-carat gold Thomas Keller medal will be presented by Denis Oswald and Dominik Keller, son of the late Thomas Keller around 13:00 on Sunday 15 July on the medal ceremony podium at the Rotsee regatta course.
A full Rowing World Cup event by event preview will be available on www.worldrowing.com from Wednesday 11 July.
Entries and race schedules are available at the following links:
The event finals will be video streamed live on Sunday 15 July and can be accessed through the www.worldrowing.com website.
The Rowing World Cup series was launched exactly ten years ago, in 1997, and includes all 14 Olympic boat classes. The overall Rowing World Cup winners are determined after a series of three regattas. Germany has dominated the series since its beginning ten years ago. This year, the three stages of the series are held in Linz/Ottensheim, Austria (1-3 June); Amsterdam, the Netherlands (22-24 June); and the final in Lucerne, Switzerland (13-15 July).
Visit the official website of the International Rowing Federation and the Rowing World Cup 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, photographs, press releases, start lists and full results.
Media accreditation can be requested through the website (www.worldrowing.com > media > media accreditation ).