Who to watch at the 2018 World Rowing Indoor Championships

Competitors from 23 nations have signed up to race making up 2527 participants split between Alexandria’s annual Erg Sprint event and the World Rowing Indoor Championship.  The championship events being raced at the standard 2000m distance. The biggest number of entries is in the junior categories with masters events the next most participants.

A number of high-profile, on-water rowers will be competing as well as indoor rowing World Record holders and indoor rowing specialists.  

Here are some of the names to look out for:

Hungary’s Adrian Juhasz, will be competing in the men’s open  competition. Previously Juhasz has won gold at the 2017 World Rowing Championships in the men’s coxed pair with partner Béla Simon, who will also be competing this weekend. Both competed at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ukraine’s Anton Bondarenko, will be challenging the Hungarians. Bondarenko has been on Ukraine’s national rowing team for a number of years competing predominantly in the men’s eight.

But the crowd is likely to be behind American competitor Gregory Ansolabehere. At nearly 2m tall, Ansolabehere trialled for the US Olympic team in 2016. Last year he competed internationally for the first time. Watch out too for Czech national team rower, Jakub Podrazil.

Artur Mikolajczewski from Poland will be competing in the men’s lightweight category. Last year his season saw him win gold at the 2017 World Rowing Cup III in the lightweight men’s single sculls and at the 2017 World Games, Mikolajczewski won the lightweight men’s category in a time of 6:08.2. Mikolajczewski will face New Zealand rower, Alistair Bond. Rio Olympian, Bond has been tracking his progress in a blog as he has prepared for these championships, here.

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The queen of indoor rowing, Olena Buryak from Ukraine will be taking part in the women’s open race. Buryak is the fastest woman in the world on the indoor rowing machine holding the World Record holder of the 500m, 1000m and 2000m. She won the open women’s category at the 2017 World Games for indoor rowing and the year before competed at the Rio Olympic Games on the water in the women’s quadruple sculls. Buryak has stated that she hopes to break her World Record in Alexandria.

China’s Dandan Pan is competing in the  lightweight women’s under-23 category.   Last season Pan was third at the  World Rowing Championships in the lightweight women’s quadruple sculls.  She will face Rio Olympic rower, Melita Abraham of Chile.

Mexico’s Alexis Lopez Garcia will race in the men’s under-23 lightweight category. In 2017 Lopez took second at the World Rowing Under 23 Championships in the lightweight men’s single sculls. Lopez will take on Zhengu Yang and Sensen Chen of China.

Full entry list here.