Rowers to watch and how to follow the 2023 European Rowing Under 23 Championships

The European Rowing season continues in Germany for the 2023 European Rowing Under 23 Championships. More than 320 athletes from 26 European member federations are set to compete in Krefeld.

Many of these athletes have just competed a few weeks ago at the World Rowing Under 23 Championships in Plovdiv or at the World Rowing Under 19 Championships in Paris. Here are the rowers to watch racing 26 to 27 August.

The men’s and women’s double sculls often attract large entries and this year is no exception. The men’s double sculls is a packed field and the favourites must be Greece’s Nikolaos Cholopoulos and Dimitros Papazoglou, who just won a silver medal at the World Rowing Under 19 Championships. Chasing them will be Jakob Geyer and Philipp Dosse of Germany, with the former taking gold at the junior worlds last year. The women’s double sculls sees several of the competitors from the 2023 World Under 23 Championships  returning, with gold medallists Iulia-Liliana Balauca and Alexandra Ungureanu of Romania looking to grab another gold medal at an international rowing event this summer.

The men’s single sculls event will see former World Rowing U19 Chamcpion, Marco Prati of Italy, take on Greece’s Panagiotis Makrygiannis, who finished second in Paris earlier this month.  It will be interesting to see the progress of August Wisholm of Denmark or Cezary Litka of Poland after another year of training. The women’s single sculls has fourteen entries and all eyes will be on the reigning World Under 23 Champion, Aurelia-Maxima Janzen of Switzerland, just a week before competing at the senior World Championships. Anna Santruckova of Czechia and Laine Rumpe of Latvia have been regulars on the podium at this level and will be looking to challenge the young Swiss phenom.

Romania often dominates the men’s and women’s pair, especially at the under-23 level. Andrei-Petrisor Axintoi and Claudiu Neamtu will have to face Enes Biber and Aytimur Selcuk of Turkey, fresh off a World Rowing Under 19 title in Paris. Italy and Lithuania could also be in the mix but they both have relatively new crews lining up. The women’s pair will also see a new crew for Romania, out of the women’s eight, battle against Greece, Austria and Poland.

Moving on to the bigger boats. The men’s quadruple sculls has eight entries, but lots of crews with tons of experience of international rowing, including Polnad returning silver medallist from the World U23 Championships, Jakub Wozniak. They are certainly the crew to watch in Krefeld. The women’s quadruple sculls has only three entries, and will likely see Lithuania taking the honours, with an experienced crew.

The women’s four has only three entries but two of the World U23 Champions from Poland will be competing in Germany. There are eightentries in the men’s four and Romania and Great Britain are definitely in the running for a medal.

The European Under 23 Championships will also have quite a few lightweight categories being raced. In the lightweight men’s double sculls, Moritz Kuepper and Adrian Reinstaedler of Germany are definitely the crew to watch – although they will be challenged by Portugal, Switzerland and Hungary. The lightweight women’s double sculls is likely to go to Italy, with the experienced crew of Ilaria Corazza and Elena Sali, both havnig won medals at the World U23 Championships in Plovdiv.

Rounding it out are the eights. The men’s eight has five entries, including Great Britain, who won the title in Plovdiv a few weeks ago. The crew is different, but the momentum is there . Keep an eye too on Romania who has entered a very experienced young crew and has got some great results in sweep boats this year. In a two-boat battle in the women’s eight, the odds are in Romania’s favour. They picked up gold at the same event last year and return with great ambitions.

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How to follow the European Rowing Under 23 Championships

The first races commence Saturday, 26 August at at 09:00 (CET).

1. The provisional time table for the event can be found here. And entries for all the races are available here.
2. Live video streaming will be available for the whole competition on World Rowing’s YouTube Channel.
3. Follow us on Facebook,  Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for behind the scenes interviews, live updates, photos and more.
4. Also available on WorldRowing.com
   • Start lists / Schedule
   • Results
   • News /

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