Top results for Tunisia at Arab Rowing Championships

Against eight other countries, Tunisia won seven gold medals of the 14 boat classes that were raced and finished with 11 medals overall. Their stand-out athlete was Olympian Racha Soula who finished first in the women’s double sculls (with Raja Mansour) and women’s single sculls. Soula also scored second in the junior women’s single sculls while Mansour picked up silver in the lightweight women’s single sculls and gold in the women’s quadruple sculls.

The other gold medals for Tunisia came in the lightweight men’s single sculls, junior men’s single and double sculls, women’s quadruple sculls and the junior women’s double sculls.

Iraq made a big step up and organiser Faycal Soula said the Iraqi team impressed all of the coaches, especially with the performance of their junior men. Iraq won the junior men’s quadruple sculls, were second in the junior men’s double sculls and Mohamed Riadh Jassem finished second in the junior men’s single sculls beating Egypt in the process. In the lightweight men’s single sculls Ones Agil Yawar was second ahead of Algeria. Iraq was fourth overall on the medals table behind Egypt in second and Algeria in third.

Leading up to the Arab Rowing Championships Olympic Solidarity in conjunction with FISA organised a 10-day training camp for youth rowers. The camp was to help prepare them for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing and the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. Eight countries took part in this training camp which was supervised by Tunisia’s national technical director, Faycal Soula and two Tunisian coaches. Rowers participated from Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Iraq, Tunisia and Libya.

The regatta was held on Lake Tunis which has already hosted past Arab Rowing Championships, the African Rowing Championships and the 2011 Mediterranean Games. The day after the Arab Rowing Championships finished the annual International Regatta of the Lake of Tunis. This is a sprint regatta of 500m and it is in its sixth year.

There are 22 countries that are allowed to compete at the Arab Rowing Championships, consisting of those that speak Arabic and are members of Arab League. There are 17 Arab countries affiliated to FISA and to FAA (Arab Rowing Federation).

The Arab Rowing Championships was first held in 1990 in Cairo, Egypt. They are held roughly every four years and were last contested in 2009 in Alexandria, Egypt.