A junior taste of Olympic rowing at Shunyi

The first Olympic venue to be completed. The first test event to be staged. The first time Chinese juniors showed their might. The 2007 World Rowing Junior Championships in Beijing, China – many firsts. First of all junior athletes from 50 nations had to obtain the appropriate visas to enter China. Once in Beijing the juniors then had to travel 30km out of the city and be stopped 2km from the venue by local police.

An Olympic feel at Shunyi's launching pontoons

To enter the event first the athletes, spectators and staff had to dispose of all bottles then pass your belongings through an x-ray machine and walk through a body scanner. Once in the venue, the Shunyi Rowing-Canoeing Park, Beijing’s Olympic rowing venue, you are inside a 162 hectare area about an hour from the centre of Beijing.

Then athletes had to race through heats, sometimes repechages and semifinals to make the final on the fourth day of racing. At the end of the day of finals the Chinese junior rowers were at the top of the overall medals table. China won a staggering six golds out of the thirteen events. They earned these in the junior women’s four, single, pair, double and the junior men’s pair and quad.

Not only is this the biggest medal haul by Chinese junior rowers, but it overwhelmingly surpasses any past medal takings. China’s junior’s have only ever won gold once before and that occurred nine years ago, in 1998.

Perennial winners Germany ranked first by total medal count, with 10, but China’s higher number of golds made them the overall winners in points. The large medal haul by China and Germany left very few medals for other countries. Romania ranked third overall picking up just three medals, then Belarus followed with two. The remainder of medals were spread – one each – over 16 nations.

Behind the scenes at the junior championships 800 volunteers were spread out between 23 team managers who covered areas of expertise from media to logistics to competition.

Rowing secretariat supervisor Ms. Song Qianying said the volunteers were chosen predominantly from Beijing Normal University and Beijing Sports University students by their ability to speak English.

One of the key elements to a successful rowing course is the fairness across lanes and this feature was praised by coaches and athletes alike. President of FISA, Denis Oswald reiterated this point calling the course spacious and free of problems from wind and saying as far as he could tell little change would be necessary before next year’s Olympic Games.

FISA's Executive Director Matt Smith added, “FISA is very pleased with the test event. The infrastructure is spectacular, the organisation was outstanding and the people were so friendly. We have some rather small improvements to suggest to BOCOG and the IOC but really minor. We are looking forward to a great Olympic regatta.”

In 2008 the World Rowing Junior Championships will be hosted by Linz/Ottensheim, Austria and will be in conjunction with the World Rowing Championships for non-Olympic events.

Interview thanks to Chiara Ferrara