First European Rowing Championships since 1973 start tomorrow

Today, at the draw, 31 countries responded present with their teams, and ready to take to the start as of tomorrow morning, 9:30am CET. Races will take place over three days ending with A Finals on Sunday 23 September.

Nearly 400 athletes competing in 133 crews will compete. The programme of the European Rowing Championship includes all 14 Olympic boat classes.

Big names to look out for at this regatta include world silver medallist Rumyana Neykova from Bulgaria, Czech single sculler Mirka Knapkova, 4th place at the World Champs two weeks ago, Sweden’s Frida Svensson and Russian sculler Julia Levina in the women’s single sculls event.

Italy sends Elia Luini and Leonardo Pettinari who have reunited in the lightweight men’s double sculls and will attempt their first European title in Poznan. Italy is also represented by Daniele Gilardoni and Lorenzo Bertini as well as their men’s quadruple sculls Luca Ghezzi, Federico Gattinoni, Simone Raineri and Simone Venier.

Other names include World Champions for 2005 in the lightweight men’s double sculls Zsolt Hirling and Tamas Varga from Hungary, Romania’s flagship women’s eight and Czech Republic’s Vaclav Chalupa and Milan Dolecek in the men’s eight.

The event will be covered on www.worldrowing.com with the usual photo gallery, live race viewer, as well as live commentary over the three days and live video streaming through partner www.wcsn.com on Sunday. Sunday’s A Finals will be host produced by TVP and are available to broadcasters from the EBU satellite feed. Contact EBU for European rights (including news access rights) and FISA for non-European rights.
Full entry lists and schedule are available on www.worldrowing.com.

About the European Rowing Championships

The European Rowing Championships were re-established last May 2006, when 28 European national rowing federations elected a European Rowing management board consisting of three elected members from the federations and three members appointed by FISA, this way ensuring close cooperation and coordination. The board oversees the running of the event as well as the rules for the event. In total, 43 member federations are eligible to be part of the European Rowing Championships.