World Champions control Armada Cup

Raced over 9km in Bern, Switzerland, this year’s Armada Cup proved to be one of the most competitive to date with some of the best scullers in the world fronting up to take on the winding, challenging course. Sweden’s best, Lassi Karonen was there. So was a whole bunch of Italy’s top lightweights including Elia Luini and Franco Sancassani. The grand master of rowing, Jueri Jaanson was there with practically the entire Estonian team. Slovenia’s Luka Spik showed up along with USA’s top single sculler, Michelle Guerette.

One of the big draw cards was the 1500 Swiss Francs for the winner of the senior men’s and senior women’s category. This is Karsten’s third time bagging the pot and Drysdale’s second.

Another bonus was the chance to add an element of contact into this generally non-contact sport. The Armada Cup is unique in its mass start approach with the 200+ singles leaving all at the same time. Speed and aggression at the start becomes the key. Blade and boat clashes as well as the yelling of choice words are not uncommon.

Winner of the men’s event, Drysdale was well prepared for the aggressive start having won the event last year. In the women’s category Karsten was chased hard for the entire course by Guerette and only managed a two second victory at the finish line. Overall Karsten finished 31st with Guerette right behind in 32nd position.

Previous winner Steve Tucker of the United States lost his chance at going for gold this year after tangling with another boat 800m into the race. Meanwhile Switzerland’s Andre Vonarburg used his local knowledge of the course to hold off Karonen in the closing stretch of the race.

“I am sure this was the strongest field ever,” said organiser Simon Stuerm who believes the excitement of the mass start is one of the draw cards for top athletes to the event. “We had four former Armadacup winners (Jaanson 1997, Vonarburg 2004, Tucker 2005, Drysdale 2006) and the first six of last year at the start.”

The winding river course had no set path to follow with shallow areas and weed adding to the trickiness. But no wind and flat water made for easy sculling.

Selected Results:

Senior Men
1 Mahe Drysdale, New Zealand, 33:06
2 Andre Vonarburg, Switzerland, 33:35
3 Lassi Karonen, Sweden, 33:44
4 Elia Luini, Italy, 33:50

Senior Women
1 Karsten Ekaterina, Belarus, 36:48
2 Michelle Guerette, United States 36:50
3 Marit van Eupen, Netherlands, 38:32