Drysdale victorious at Silver Skiff

Olympic Champion Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand pulled off a comfortable overall win finishing 29 seconds ahead of Jost Schoemann-Finck of Germany. Drysdale is currently on his annual rowing tour which has included racing at the Head of the Charles in Boston, USA and the Armada Cup in Switzerland as well as a trip to London to be part of the Parmigiani Spirit Award presentation. This was Drysdale’s fifth time racing in the Silver Skiff.

Schoemann-Finck was the 2012 winner of the Silver Skiff and raced this year for his country in the lightweight men’s four. Poland’s Natan Wegrzycki-Szymczyk, the 2013 junior World Champion in the men’s single sculls, was third and the first junior home. Wegrzycki-Szymczyk also won the junior category last year.

Winning for the second year in a row was Germany’s Lena Mueller. Mueller was the first woman home and she finished 74th overall. A lightweight rower, Mueller took bronze in the lightweight women’s double sculls at this year’s World Rowing Championships. Mueller finished 39 seconds ahead of Dominique van der Pauw of the Netherlands in second. Third place went to Russia’s long-term national team member, Julia Levina.  

Special for this year were the 150 year celebrations for the Royal Rowing Club Cerea. The club was founded in 1863 and is the oldest rowing club in Italy. The clubhouse itself is impressive at 127 years old. The club helped found the Royal Italian Rowing Club in 1888 which went on to become the Italian Rowing Federation and the first ever meeting of the World Rowing Federation, FISA, was in Turin in 1892.
The Silver Skiff race began as a challenge race in singles between Cerea club members and over the 22 years it grew to include other Italian clubs and other nations.

The race is unique for a head race being 11km long. The singles leave one at a time (every 20 seconds) from the Cerea club and go against the current on the right bank of the River Po with a turn around a buoy at an island and then returning along the left bank back to the club. This year the weather included a bit of early rain before the sun came out for the rest of racing.

A total of 476 rowers took part from 18 countries including the United States, Hungary, Spain, Macedonia, Canada, Brazil and Serbia.

For full results: www.silverskiff.org