Tokyo Paralympic Games – Para rowing entries confirmed

The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games regatta is set to start on 27 August 2021 and entries are now confirmed with rowers from 25 countries racing.

The four para rowing boat classes each have 12 entries for a total of 48 boats and 96 para rowers competing at the Sea Forest Waterway regatta course on Tokyo Bay.

The PR1 women’s single sculls features the unstoppable Birgit Skarstein of Norway. The multi-talented athlete is also a winter Paralympian and she has not lost a para rowing race since finishing fourth at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Skarstein will face Rio bronze medallist Moran Samuel of Israel and the ever-improving Anna Shermet of Ukraine.

Roman Polianskyi of Ukraine and Erik Horrie of Australia lead their field in the PR1 men’s single sculls. Polianskyi is the reigning World and Paralympic Champion while Horrie is the 2018 World Champion and the Rio and London Paralympic silver medallist. There is also Aleksey Chuvashev representing the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC). Chuvashev is a regular medallist and his most recent success is a silver at the 2020 European Rowing Championships.

Para rowing first came into the Paralympic Games in 2008 and Great Britain has won the PR3 mixed coxed four every time since. In Tokyo they will line up with a crew that has one remaining member from the Rio Paralympic Champion crew, James Fox. He will be joined by Ellen Buttrick, Giedre Rakauskaite, Oliver Stanhope and coxswain Erin Kennedy. The British will face Rio silver medallists the United States which has Danielle Hansen returning to the boat since Rio.

The PR2 mixed coxed double sculls features reigning World and Paralympic Champions Laurence Whiteley and Lauren Rowles of Great Britain. They will be challenged by Annika van der Meer and Corne de Koning of the Netherlands. Both Australia and France are regular medal contenders as well.

The Paralympic para rowing regatta will run from 27 to 29 August 2021 with 30 August available as a reserve day in case there are changes to the schedule.

For race results, live blog, photos, and race reports go to www.worldrowing.com
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