Daily Digest: Reps Concluded at the 2023 European Rowing Championships

The second day of racing at the 2023 European Rowing Championships once again saw glorious racing conditions on Lake Bled. The session started with two preliminary races and then a series of repechages where crews had a second opportunity to secure a place in further rounds of racing.

GB maintain dominance in PR3 mixed four

This event saw the return of Erin Kennedy in the coxes seat of the Great Britain PR3 mixed four. Erin’s last race was the 2022 European Rowing Championships, where her crew won gold. Between then and now Erin has undergone successful treatment for breast cancer. In the early stages of the race, it was very close between Great Britain and Germany but GB soon started to show their usual form and had established one length by 1,000m. While Germany and France were battling out for second place, GB continued to lead but perhaps not by as much as usual. It will be interesting to see how things play out in the final on Sunday.

Can anyone catch the Romanian women’s eight?

Similar to last season, the Romanian women’s eight looked absolutely dominant in this boat class. They are reigning World Champions and have a title of European Champions to defend too, which they look set to do so in Sunday’s final. Great Britain secured second place, closely followed by Germany.

World Champions lead repechage

It was perhaps a surprise to see the reigning World Champions Poland in the repechage of the men’s quad but this morning they successfully confirmed their place in tomorrow’s final, comfortably winning the second repechage. Ukraine took the second qualifying place from that race.

Home favourites and birthday qualification

While the first repechage of the lightweight men’s single sculls had the crowds going wild with Slovenia’s Rajko Hrvat cruising to victory, the second repechage saw birthday boy Andri Struzina of Switzerland have the best present possible as he secured his place in the final. Hrvat and Struzina were the gold and silver medalists respectively at the recent World Rowing Cup in Zagreb so it will be great to see them come head-to-head again in the final on Sunday.

Olympic silver medalist misses out

The men’s single sculls is the biggest boat class of the Championships and the field is stacked for talent. It was a shock to see Norway’s Kjetil Borch miss out on qualification for the A/B semifinals; he came third in his repechage behind Kristian Vasilev of Bulgaria and Nikolaj Pimenov of  Serbia. The photo finish camera was in action in the fourth repechage which saw Croatia’s Olympic bronze medalist Damir Martin take the win. Just behind Martin, a final sprint from Hungary’s Bendeguz Petervari-Molnar secured him the second qualifying place, much to the disappointment of the home supporters as Slovenia’s Filip-Matej Pfeifer was pushed into third place. The stage is set for some exciting semifinals tomorrow!

First knock-out race

The repechage of the PR1 women’s single scull saw the end of the Championships for the first boat as five scullers raced for four places in the final. Sadly for the Netherlands, it was Eva Mol that missed out on this occasion despite a strong performance. She was making her international debut and we look forward to seeing more of her in the future.

Coming up later

There’s more to come this afternoon including our first final of the Championships. We’ll see the C-Final of the lightweight men’s double sculls. Stay here for all of our coverage.