Impressive return for the World Rowing Under 23 Championships

The journey to Paris 2024 starts next week with the 2021 World Rowing Under 23 Championships. The event is making an impressive return after last being held in 2019 due to its cancellation in 2020. There are entries of nearly 800 athletes from 55 countries coming to Racice, Czech Republic.

With 22 boat classes on the schedule, the two biggest teams come from either side of the globe with the United States and Germany both fielding crews in all of the boat classes. Entries also include a number of Latin American countries with Peru, Panama and Paraguay all featured.

By far the biggest entry is in the men’s single sculls. Thirty-one nations have entered their finest male scullers. There are many new names including Riccardo Bouehi from Ivory Coast and Martin Zocalo of Uruguay. One of the more accomplished is Emil Neykov of Bulgaria who started racing internationally as a junior in 2017. Belgium’s Tristan Vandenbussche has also raced internationally since 2017 and earlier this year he made the men’s single B-final at World Rowing Cup II in Lucerne.

The women’s single sculls is well-represented with 22 nations having made entries. A top performance is expected to come from Alexandra Foester of Germany. Foester finished seventh at this year’s European Rowing Championships and she also attempted to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics when she raced in May at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta. Foester will be up against Linda de Filippis of Italy who raced earlier this season at the senior level in Italy’s quadruple sculls. Benthe Boonstra of the Netherlands also raced at the senior level this season and is one of the few athletes here who has competed at an under-23 championship. Boonstra was part of the Dutch gold medal eight in 2019.

Showing her versatility, Alexis Cronk of Canada will race in both the women’s single and the women’s pair. This is Cronk’s first time racing internationally and she will face the Jurkovic twins from Croatia in the pair. Ivana and Josipa Jurkovic have the experience of a full 2021 season of racing at the senior level. This included gold in the pair at World Rowing Cup I in Zagreb and a fifth-place finish at the European Rowing Championships.

Racing will be held at Racice’s international regatta venue which has previously hosted the 1993 World Rowing Championships and the 2017 European Rowing Championships. The regatta will follow strict Covid-19 prevention protocol and no spectators will be allowed.

The World Rowing Under 23 Championships is raced in 22 boat classes and is open to all World Rowing Federation member federations. Rowers must be under the age of 23. The under-23s began in 1976 and was called the ‘Seniors Match’. The name was then changed to the ‘Nations Cup’ before becoming the World Rowing Under 23 Championships in 2005.

For entries, timetable, full race reports, live race tracker and commentary, live blog and live video streaming please go to www.worldrowing.com

For the complete entry list click here.