Para-rowers shine on the Paris 2024 Paralympic course

With a little over a year to go until racing gets underway at the Paris 2024 Games, some of the world’s best Para-rowers tested out the Stade Nautique Olympique venue last weekend, for the second edition of France’s dedicated Para-Rowing regatta to Paris. The event attracted rowers from host nation France, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, United States and the Netherlands, as well as a number of rowers from French clubs aiming to line up beside the Paralympic greats.

Racing on Saturday and Sunday, the athletes were treated with glorious conditions in Vaires-sur-Marne. In the Paralympic boat classes, we saw the return of Great Britain’s Benjamin Pritchard, who missed the beginning of this season after he became a dad a few weeks ago, in the PR1 men’s single sculls. Facing the reigning European champion, Giacomo Perini of Italy, and a newcomer in the discipline, Alexis Sanchez of France, Pritchard did perform quite well – we will see him back for Paralympic qualification in September.

The PR2 men’s single sculls was, on Saturday, a carbon copy of the recent results at World Rowing Cup II in Varese, with Corné de Koning beating both Italians, Gian Filippo Mirabile and Daniele Stefanoni. On sunday, with De Koning not racing, Mirabile won ahead of Stefanoni and newcomer of France, Benjamin Daviet, a five-time Paralympic champion in para biathlon and nordic skiing, who recently switched to para-rowing.

In the newly Paralympic PR3 Mixed Double Sculls, the US combination of Todd Vogt and Germma Wollenschlaeger, dominated both races on Saturday and Sunday – a good marker for this crew, absent in Varese, who will come in as early favourites in Belgrade for the direct Paralympic qualification.

Open races over 500m concluded the regatta on Sunday.

Besides the Olympic and Paralympic regattas in 2024, the Stade Nautique Olympique will host the World Rowing Under 19 Championships in August 2023.

Be sure to follow World Rowing and check the website for updates on these events as well as future stories about the venue and history of Olympic rowing in France as Paris prepares to host the Games for the third time in history.

Photos thanks to Emmelieke Okul – Fédération Française d’Aviron