How to follow rowing at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games

Ninety-six rowers aged 17-18 years old from 50 nations will be compete in four boat classes. These are; men’s and women’s single sculls and the men’s and women’s pair. There are 24 rowers in each event. The rowing regatta takes place from Sunday 7 October with time trials followed by heats through to finals on from 8-10 October. Thursday 11 October his held as a reserve day.

World Rowing will provide race reports and features throughout the regatta along with racing results on www.worldrowing.com. You can also find the race summaries on our Facebook page (WorldRowingJunior), on Instagram (WorldRowingOfficial) and also on Twitter (WorldRowing).

The rowing takes place in the ‘Urban Park’ located on the Rio de la Plata in Puerto Madero, in the heart of Buenos Aires. The rowing course has the iconic bridge Puente de la Mujer (Women’s Bridge) that crosses it. It was designed by architect Santiago Calatrava to look like a couple dancing the tango. Races are over a 500m distance with four boats per race.

Many of these rowers last competed internationally at the World Rowing Junior Championships, which took place two months ago in Racice, Czech Republic.

One profile to keep your eyes open for, is the home favourite, Maria Sol Ordas of Argentina. Maria raced at the World Rowing Junior Champs in the women’s single sculls and placed second behind Romanian rower Tabita Maftei by less than one second. Maftei won’t be attending the YOG, so Sol Ordas could be in good stead to take home the gold medal, especially as she set a New World Best Time of 07:31.5 in Racice.

Another rower to keep on your radar is Cormac Kennedy-Leverett from Australia. Kennedy-Leverett placed first at the 2017 World Rowing Junior Championships in the men’s double sculls, and this year finished second in the men’s single. This was just behind Clark Dean (USA) who also won in 2017 and in 2018 set a new junior World Best Time in the single. Clark won’t be racing in Buenos Aires leaving the Belarussian, Ivan Brynza looking to be the biggest challenger for gold. Brynza placed fourth at this year’s World Rowing Junior Championships, five seconds behind Cormac. We’ll also be seeing Uruguay’s, Martin Gonzalez Volkman competing in the same event. Martin is one of the up-and-coming rowers out of South America.

The brothers are back in the men’s pair! Not the Sinkovic brothers that you might have had in mind, but rather another Croatian pair, of Anton and Patrik Loncaric. The Loncaric twins placed third at the World Rowing Junior Champs this year, five seconds behind first placed Florin Nicolae Arteni-Fintinariu and Alexandru Laurentiu Danciu from Romania. The Loncaric’s also set the new junior World Best Time of 06:29.91 in the semifinals. These two crews will be racing each other for the Youth Olympic title.  Keep an eye out too for home favourites Tomas Herrera and Felipe Modarelli. They placed eighth at the World Rowing Junior Championships.

Then there’s the Chilean women’s pair of Christina Hostetter and Isidor Niemeyer. Hostetter and Niemeyer finished third at the World Rowing Junior Championships, one place in front of the Lithuanian crew of Kamile Kralikatie and Vytaute Urbonaite. Both of these crews will be putting in their best efforts to claim a position on the podium at the YOG.

The Youth Olympic Games is a stepping-stone for younger rowers advancement into their future as elite athletes. Click here to see the thoughts of Chile’s Abraham sisters, who competed in the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China and who later on went to win the 2017 World Rowing Under 23 Championships.