The fastest in the men’s single sculls get ready for the Olympics

It’s taken an extra 360-something days to get there, but now the Olympic Games are just around the corner. To claim to be the fastest rower in the world makes an Olympic medal in the men’s single sculls one of the most prized medals at the Games. World Rowing looks back on the last four years in the single and makes some bold predictions for Tokyo.

 Recap of last four years: After the stunner of an Olympic final in Rio 2016 where New Zealand’s Mahe Drysdale successfully defended his title from London 2012 by a blade’s width against Croatia’s Damir Martin, no individual has risen right to the top to dominate the field. A succession of different scullers have made it onto the podium at international events with what seems like more intense and narrow margins at the finish line. Here’s a look at the last quadrennial:

• 2019 World Championships: GER, DEN, NOR, LTU, NED, CZE
• 2018 World Championships: NOR, CZE, LTU, GBR, NZL, GER
• 2017 World Championships: CZE, CUB, GBR, CRO, NZL, GER
• 2016 Olympics: NZL, CRO, CZE, BEL, BLR, CUB

 Must watch:  The must watch race of the quadrennial has to be the 2019 World Rowing Championships final. Claiming his first World Championship title, Germany’s Oliver Zeidler took gold in a time of 6:44.55, a mere 0.03 seconds ahead of Sverri Nielsen of Denmark (6:44.58) with Norway’s Kjetil Borch (6:44.84) earning bronze only 0.26 after that. In fact, barely one second separated first from fifth in a race that saw Lithuania’s Mindaugas Griskonis (6:45.24) and Stef Broenink (6:45.58) of the Netherlands cross in 4^th and 5^th with former World Champion Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic finishing close behind in 6:47.93.

The action was intense as the scullers switched lead positions throughout the race. First Zeidler was up and then it was Broenink. With 500m left in the race, Borch and Nielsen were pushing Broenink to breaking point and that battle seemed to give Zeidler the opening he needed for a final sprint to gold. Check out the action from that race here .

Closest medal race: There have been many, but one that stands out – at the only major regatta of the past year in fact – was the final at the 2020 European Rowing Championships. Zeidler looked poised to build on his 2019 World Championship win as he blasted off the line and kept going for a strong lead by the 1000m mark. That’s when the rest of the field started regaining water.

Nielsen and Borch came on powerfully to narrow Zeidler’s lead in the third quarter, but Zeidler was still holding on with 500m to go. In the final stretch, Nielsen got in front. Then an incredible surge from Poland’s Natan Wegrzycki-Szymczyk put three boats neck-and-neck for the remaining two medal positions. Crossing the line, it was Nielsen (6:50.22), Wegrzycki-Szymczyk (6:51.23), Borch (6:51.63) and Zeidler (6:51.65). Re-live the excitement of that race here.

 World Best Time: 6:30.74 (NZL) Robbie Manson set the World Best Time at the 2017 World Rowing Cup II in Poznan, Poland. Interestingly, the previous World Best Time had also been held by a New Zealander, Mahe Drysdale, who set it at 6:33.35 at the 2009 World Rowing Championships, also in Poznan.

 Performance of the Olympiad: In terms of medals won, Zeidler, Synek and Angel Fournier Rodriguez (CUB) captured four each in World Cup and World Championship competition in the years since the Rio 2016 Olympics. Fournier’s results are impressive and saw him take a string of silvers in a row during the 2017 season, although gold remained elusive. Zeidler, on the other hand did take gold, but only once and that was at the 2019 World Championships. Synek claimed two golds in these top races, one at the 2017 World Championships. All three had some incredible performances.

 Olympic qualifiers to date: GER, DEN, NOR, LTU, NED, CZE, NZL, CRO, ITA, EGY, ZIM, BEN, CIV, LBA (14 of 32 spots)

 The ramification of an ‘extra year’: The additional year has had an interesting effect already on the event. While giving more time for the up and comers like Zeiler to build on their performances, the unexpected delay has also meant that a few established names have hung up their oars. Notable in this group is current world best time holder Robbie Manson. That move in particular has opened up the prospect of fellow Kiwi, Mahe Drysdale, making a return to the single sculls to attempt a third Olympic gold in this event.

 Olympic prediction: With the possible return of defending Olympic Champion, Drysdale for the Tokyo Olympic regatta, the big question is, can the world expect to see the same neck-and-neck battle as took place in 2016? The margins of victory in the years since have been incredibly narrow with a different rower topping the podium at each successive World Rowing Championships. What happens between now and the Olympics might provide some clues as to who will be the fastest.

 Fun fact: The men’s single was one of the events at the 1900 Paris Olympics in the first successful Olympic regatta. In a total of 27 Games between then and now, 19 individual scullers have won Olympic gold, six of them more than once. Yet only two (Finland’s Perttii Karppinen and the Soviet Union’s Vyacheslav Ivanov) have won three back-to-back Olympic gold medals in the single. If Drysdale mounts a successful defense in Tokyo, he will join this elite club.