Narrowed down to semifinals at the Rowing World Cup

 On today’s menu was a mixture of semifinals, lesser finals and, in the evening, the A Finals for the international events.

Lightweight Women's Single Sculls (LW1x)

Seventeen years ago Benedicte Dorfman, 36, of France started her international rowing career. After rowing to seventh at the 2000 Olympics she took a break, married lightweight rower Xavier and started a family. She’s now back and led the way in the first semifinal over Austria’s Michaela Taupe. Taupe started her international career a year after Dorfman and has been plugging away with mixed results. This season, however, she’s stepped up a level and has two World Cup silvers. Today Taupe and Dorfman challenged each other for first with Germany’s Laura Tasch slipping into third. Dorfman qualifies from first, Taupe takes second and Tasch qualifies from third.

The faster of the two semis saw the reigning World Champion Marit van Eupen take to the lead with Denmark2 Maria Pertl chasing. But the skill of the World Champion meant that Pertl could do little more than hold on to the second spot. Meanwhile the battle for third was fierce. Italy’s Valentina Galmarini had a solid margin over Mirna Rajle of Croatia – or at least that’s what Galmarini thought. In the final spint Rajle showed her boat speed and taking the rating up Rajle charged for the line. Galmarini misses out and Rajle joins van Eupen and Pertl in the final.

Lightweight Men’s Single Sculls (LM1x)

In semifinal one the field must have been feeling out of luck to have to line up against the winner of the last Rowing World Cup, Duncan Grant of New Zealand. Grant has been racing from the front and did the same in this race by grabbing hold of the lead with just 500m rowed. This left the rest of the field to aim for the two remaining spots and it was Lorenzo Bertini of Italy that went after second. Bertini has spent much of his long rowing career in the lightweight four but has dabbled in the quad, eight and single as well. Today he held off Pierre-Etienne Pollez of France and in the close of the race no challenges meant Grant takes first, Bertini second and Pollez is the final qualifier in third.

The second New Zealand boat lined up in semifinal two. Storm Uru came out of the blocks behind Jaap Schouten of the Netherlands but soon reeled the Dutch man back in. Uru has an extra incentive to do well here in Lucerne as only one single can go to the World Rowing Championships from each country. Up against Duncan Grant, Uru has a tough challenge. But the under 23 World Champion still has the opportunity to race again as an under 23 rower this year in Strathclyde, Scotland. With that Uru moved away from Schouten with Germany’s Jonathan Koch taking chase in the third spot. Koch had quite a job on his hands as Kazushige Ura of Japan was after that third spot as well. Kazushige was the unlucky one. Uru finishes first, Schouten second and Koch holds off Kazushige to take third.

Lesser finals

For crews and individuals that miss out on making it through to the A Final, international rowing offers another chance to race in B, C, D and even E Finals – depending on the original number of entries in an event. Today saw the rowers in the lesser finals take to the water for another chance to race, another chance to improve.

Better known for his power on the indoor rowing machine, Pavel Shurmei of Belarus tried the men’s single and finished second in the E Final behind the spare for New Zealand, Peter Benny. Finland is growing in the elite rowing department and Hanna Tuominen, winner of the lightweight women’s single D Final is part of this growth. Palestine’s Mark Gerban gave it his best in the lightweight men’s single D Final. Gerban has been plugging away for a couple of years at the international level and bases himself currently in Germany to be close to his coach. But it was Mikas Razmislavicius of Lithuania who held Gerban off to finish first.

Finland featured again in the D Final of the women’s single but only managed second to Tine Schoeyen of Norway. Schoeyen fared much better at the Amsterdam Rowing World Cup where she won the B Final. Again Finland popped up in the next race, race number 102 of this regatta, the D Final of the men’s single. Jaakko Hasu of Finland battled with Pierre-Jean Peltier of France. Peltier is the son of France’s sculling coach and got the better of Hasu to win the D Final.

Despite Slovakia getting away at the start of the lightweight men’s double D Final, Finland fought back to be overlapping in the last 500m. Slovakia held the Fins off and take first, or 19th overall.

Ireland just haven’t been firing this season and today they found themselves in the D Final of the lightweight men’s four. Ireland won bronze at last year’s World Rowing Championships and seemed in line for an Olympic run, but today they get to claim World Cup 19th position ahead of Canada’s number two crew.

Pushing through from the middle of the field, Ilona Hiltunen, in her 10th year of international competition for Finland, finishes first in the C Final of the lightweight women’s single. Luis Ahrens Teixeira of Portugal followed the same method to win the lightweight men’s C Final.

The cow bells may have been ringing for Switzerland in the C Final of the women’s single but it was Volha Berazniova of Belarus that led the way to finish13th overall. The cheering may have been for Cyprus in the C Final in the men’s single, but it was Paul Rosenquist of Sweden that secured the lead to earn a 13th place finish. Poland and Australia had a close battle in the men’s pair C Final. Poland came out on top in a very close finish.

They may have been World Champions in 2001 but have not reached that standard since. Hungary today wins the C Final of the men’s double. Germany was the shocking winner of the C Final of the men’s four. Shocking because Germany hold the World Best Time in this event and just about always race to A Final medals. Today they finish 13th.

Denmark’s number one crew are on their way to the A Final of the lightweight women’s double. Their number two crew today won the C Final. Could the cow bells help the Swiss in the C Final of the lightweight men’s double? Despite an early lead by Switzerland the result ended up with Belgium taking the top spot. Switzerland claim 15th overall.

The lightweight men’s four C Final was very close for the first half of the race before the wheat got sorted from the chaff. Poland take the top spot and 13th overall. The last race of the lesser finals, the men’s quad finished with Italy’s second crew just beating the Netherlands that included single sculler Dirk Lippits.