2015 Rowing season opens at Lake Bled, Slovenia

For immediate release
Lausanne, 29 April 2015

The World Rowing Federation, FISA, is pleased to announce the entries for the first regatta of the 2015 World Rowing Cup series to be held in Bled, Slovenia from 9-10 May 2015.

Competitors from 34 nations will race on the waters of Lake Bled, home of the 1966, 1979, 1989 and 2011 World Rowing Championships as well as many other international regattas. Nearly 200 competitors will race in a new, early season regatta format. The day before the World Rowing Cup regatta, athletes will be able to compete in the one-day, Bled International Regatta on 8 May, followed by two days of World Cup racing, culminating with finals on 10 May. The format will also see a progression system from heats directly to semi-finals, thus bypassing the repechage stage which is the usual feature of World Rowing regattas.

A full strength team from China will be in attendance with athletes racing in all of the 16 boat classes to be contested. Team China includes Wenyi Huang and Dandan Pan; bronze medallists from last year’s lightweight women’s double sculls. Also racing is Jingli Duan who finished third in the women’s single sculls at last year’s World Rowing Championships. Duan will come into Bled as a favourite in the women’s single with the added advantage of having raced on these waters during the 2011 World Rowing Championships.

The Czech Republic has entered in all but two boat classes with Olympic Champion in the women’s single scull, Mirka Knapkova leading the way. Knapkova will face China’s Duan in her first outing of the 2015 season.

Germany is sending a large team which includes a reshuffle of some of their big names in rowing. Former World Champion in the men’s single sculls, Marcel Hacker will be racing in the men’s double sculls with Stephan Krueger. Hacker and Krueger are also entered to race in opposing boats in the men’s quadruple sculls. The German women’s flagship crew, the women’s quadruple sculls will compete with one crew change from the 2014 winning boat.

Poland has entered 11 of the boat classes with Magdalena Fularczyk and Natalia Madaj likely to be leading the way for their nation. Fularczyk and Madaj were silver medallists at last year’s World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam. The Polish team will also be using this regatta to prepare for the European Rowing Championships to be hosted in the Polish city of Poznan at the end of May.

Back in the pair together, Olympic silver medallists Germain Chardin and Dorian Mortelette of France will face the very experienced Nikola Stojic of Serbia racing with his partner, Goran Jagar.

A full World Rowing Cup race-by-race preview will be available on www.worldrowing.com on Wednesday 6 May 2015.

Entries and the provisional race schedule are available today.

Entries for the Bled International Regatta: http://www.worldrowing.com/events/bled-international-regatta/documents
Entries for the World Rowing Cup I: http://www.worldrowing.com/events/2015-world-rowing-cup-i/documents

There will be a World Rowing television host production for the World Cup final races on Sunday 10 May. Sunday’s final races can be viewed live on www.worldrowing.com

The World Rowing Cup series was launched in 1997 and consists of a series of three events. The overall World Rowing Cup winners are determined after the third event. This year, the three stages of the series are Bled, Slovenia (9-10 May), Varese, Italy (18-21 June) and Lucerne, Switzerland (10-12 July).