Italian success at 2013 Mediterranean Games

Rowing was held close to Mersin in Adana and athletes from 13 countries competed in seven events – men’s and women’s single sculls, the men’s double sculls, pair and the lightweight men’s and women’s single sculls and the lightweight men’s double sculls.

Italy topped the medals table winning four golds and scoring medals in all seven of the categories. Medals were spread over nine countries. Greece came in second, Serbia was third and Turkey finished fourth.

The regatta took place over three days with good rowing conditions on all three days in terms of wind and flat water. But the days reached up to 38 degrees Celsius so the organisers tried to make sure rowing was finished by late morning.

Francesco Cardaioli of Italy won the men’s single over Dionysios Angelopoulos of Greece by two seconds with Egypt third. Iva Obradovic of Serbia had a more convincing win in the women’s single finishing five seconds ahead of Giada Colombo of Italy. The men’s pair was very tight with Italy’s Marco Di Costanzo and Matteo Castaldo just piping Olympians, Nikola Stojic and Nenad Bedjik of Serbia.

There was a lot of local interest in the lightweight men’s single and double sculls as Turkey won silver medals in both of these events. Greece won the lightweight double and Italy (Pietro Ruta) was first in the lightweight single. The lightweight women’s single was won by Aikaterini Nikolaidou of Greece and Italy’s Laura Milani was second.

Olympic silver medallist, Romano Battisti has partnered up with Francesco Fossi this season and the duo went on to win the men’s double, but Serbia, in second, held their own with Slovenia taking third.

The regatta was held on the dammed lake of Seyhan, home of the Cukurova University Rowing Club. As it was 85km from Mersin the athletes stayed near the rowing course on the Cukuorova University campus. Also held at Adana wereas canoeing and handball.

Having 13 nations participate out of the 24 eligible countries was considered a good figure and the competition manager for rowing, Etem Derman, said that this regatta is considered to be the first FISA-level rowing competition in Turkey. “It shows out country’s enthusiasm towards staging bigger events.”

The next Mediterranean Games will be held in Tarragona, Spain in 2017.