2017 European Rowing Championships entries announced

For immediate release
Lausanne, 17 May 2017

More than 500 top European rowers head to Racice, near Prague, in the Czech Republic to vie for the title of European Champion at the 2017 European Rowing Championships from 26-28 May 2017.

Teams from 34 nations have entered and, in particular, the Netherlands and Great Britain are sending large teams of 45 athletes each with Italy sending the most entries of 15 boat classes out of a possible of 18. This includes the women’s four which is new to the programme this year.

A large field of rowers representing 23 countries will start in the men’s single sculls including the top boats from World Rowing Cup I which took place earlier this month. Nico Stahlberg of Switzerland finished ahead of reigning European Champion and Olympic silver medallist Damir Martin of Croatia at World Rowing Cup I. The winning margin was less than half a second and Martin will take on Stahlberg to try and retain his European Championship title. World Cup bronze medallist Marko Marjanovic of Serbia is racing as well as Olympic bronze medallist Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic and Germany’s Tim Ole Naske. Both Synek and Naske are at their first international regatta of the season.  

The lightweight men’s double sculls sees the return to racing of Olympic Champions Pierre Houin and Jeremie Azou of France. They will face winners of World Rowing Cup I Peter Chambers and Will Fletcher of Great Britain. In the lightweight women’s double sculls, winners from World Rowing Cup I Poland’s Weronika Deresz and Martyna Mikolajczak will have new competition coming from the Netherlands. Olympic Champion Ilse Paulis has teamed up with under-23 champion from the lightweight single Marieke Keijser.

Italy has taken two members of their bronze medal Olympic men’s four Matteo Lodo and Giuseppe Vicino and will be racing them in the men’s pair. This will see Lodo and Vicino up against winners of World Rowing Cup I Jacob Dawson and Matthew Rossiter of Great Britain.

Russia is taking advantage of the recent rule change that allows coxswains of either gender to cox the men’s or women’s eight. Evgenii Terekhov will steer Russia’s women’s eight. Russia will face European Champions and Olympic silver medallists Great Britain. In the men’s eight long-time rivals Germany and Great Britain will race each other for the first time this season. They are both boating line ups different from their Olympic medal winning crews.

Racing begins on Friday 26 May at 10:00 CET with heats and progresses through repechages, semifinals and to the finals on Sunday 28 May. A-finals will start at 10:33 CET. The A-finals will be broadcast live on many European TV channels as well as on www.worldrowing.com.

Regatta information can be found here. 
Entries here. 
The World Rowing media guide will be online (from 19/5/17): http://www.worldrowing.com/mediacenter/

Rowing has staged European Championships since 1893 and it is one of the longest running sport championships on the international calendar. After a hiatus it was reinstated in 2007. The European Rowing Championships is open to the 43 European national rowing federations, including Israel.