Rowing World Cup moves to Poznan, Poland

by Melissa Bray on 13 Jun 2006 Stage two of the 2006 Rowing World Cup takes place this week in Poznan, Poland when teams from 35 nations continue their journey to become the Rowing World Cup winners this season.

Over 600 athletes competing in 251 boats will make the trip to the venue of the 2009 World Rowing Championships. The highest number of boat entries comes from Australia. They will compete in 21 boats including four entries in each of the men’s and women’s pairs.

The men’s single sculls promises to be an exciting confrontation between British single scull revelation Alan Campbell who surprised all by dominating the single sculls race at the first stage of the Rowing World Cup in Munich last month. Campbell will be up against 2005 World Champion Mahe Drysdale from New Zealand. The two friends have recently trained together but have never had the opportunity of competing against each other at a World Rowing event.

Australia’s Drew Ginn teams up with Duncan Free in the men’s pair as one of four Australian crews in this event. Free is better known as a sculler, but pairs up here with the 2004 Olympic gold medallist in what may be a new attempt at Australian pair domination in the lead up to the next Olympics.

The Slovenian double Iztok Cop and Luka Spik did not start in Munich and missed a very close final which saw the top four boats crossing the line within less than two seconds of each other. This time, Cop and Spik are back and will compete with a very strong German crew of René Bertram and Robert Sens gold medallists in Munich as well as the Hungarians (silver in Munich) France’s Adrien Hardy and Jean-Baptiste Macquet (bronze in Munich) and Great Britain Matthew Wells and Stephen Rowbotham (fourth in Munich).

A strong looking German women’s quad will put Great Britain’s 2005 World Champion crew under threat when they appear for the first time this season on the international scene.

The women’s eight features a large field of nine crews including a French women’s eight and a New Zealand crew. In the absence of Germany, the winning crew from the first Rowing World Cup, the field is open to some good competition.

A record number of entries for the men’s eight promises some good racing. Twelve crews, totalling 108 rowers, will go for gold and try to beat current Rowing World Cup leader Germany whose crew in Poznan is made up of five out of nine of the Munich winning crew. Poland and Australia, runners up at the first World Cup are also in this large attendance field.

The Rowing World Cup in Poznan, Poland begins on Thursday 15 June and will go on for three days. Finals will be raced on Saturday 17 June from 10 am CET. Full reports, live audio streaming, live results and features are available on ww.worldrowing.com. Live streaming will be available on www.eurosport.com in Europe as well as on www.wcsn.com in the rest of the world.