Adaptive rowing debuts intellectually disabled race

These boat classes, for rowers with disabilities, were first seen at the 2002 Seville World Rowing Championships. Since then the sport has come along in leaps and bounds, with a first representation at the Paralympic Games last year in Beijing. Today they raced in the “second chance” repechages at the 2009 World Rowing Championships in Poznan, Poland.

These are the athletes that advanced directly to the final from yesterday’s heats. Two events had to be raced. The first up was the arms, shoulders men’s single sculls (ASM1x). As the sport of adaptive rowing advances, developments and changes are made and this event now includes the use of shoulders. Athletes are strapped in around their waste and are on a fixed seat. But their shoulders are able to help their arms with the stroke. The two repechages added four athletes to the final – Andrii Kryvchun (UKR), Efrem Morelli (ITA), Benjamin Houlison (AUS) and Ronald Harvey (USA).

The legs, trunk and arms mixed coxed four (LTAMix4+) added four boats to the final with the winners of each repechage, Canada and Germany recording almost identical times. Qualifying from second in each repechage was Australia and Ukraine who will square off the final line-up. Germany raced in the final of this event at last year’s Paralympic Games and they will be aiming for a medal this year.

New in 2009 to the adaptive rowing programme is the legs, trunk and arms mixed coxed four for intellectually disabled athletes (LTAIDMix4+). This event has not yet been accepted as a Paralympic event, but later this year a decision will be made on its inclusion. Two countries have entered this event in Poznan, Hong Kong China and Italy. In this race for lanes for Saturday’s final, Hong Kong dominated and look to be a sure bet for a gold medal later this week.

The arms, shoulders women’s single sculls (ASW1x), also raced for lanes. The six countries included Paralympic silver medallist Liudmila Vauchok of Belarus. The standard, however, must have increased from last year and Vauchok could only manage third behind Alla Lysenko of Ukraine and Nathalie Benoit of France.