Who to watch at the European Championships

The European Rowing Championships heads to Montemor-o-Velho, Portugal this weekend with a huge turnout of internationally recognised athletes. As this year’s World Rowing Championships are happening after the European Championships, many European countries have chosen Montemor-o-Velho as a precursor to the World Champs in New Zealand. All eyes will be on how these nations are progressing in their New Zealand preparation.

Women’s Pair (W2-)

Romania holds an outstanding record in this event, both at the Olympic level and at previous European Championships and they return with the reigning champions, Camelia Lupascu and Nicoleta Albu to defend their title.

Lupascu and Albu will have strong challenges coming from both Germany and Russia. Both of these combinations are stable with Russia’s Mayya Zhuchkova and Alevtina Podvyazkina finishing second to Romania last year at the European Champs. Germany’s Hartmann and Sinnig have shown positive results already this season and they most recently finished sixth in the final Rowing World Cup in July.

Men’s Pair (M2-)

Greece has been boating two very competitive pairs this season with Georgios Tziallas and Ioannis Christou showing to have just a tad better speed over their fellow countrymen and last year’s European Champions in this event, Apostolos and Nikolaos Gkountoulas. So Tziallas and Christou will be the pair for this event and are sure to be medal favourites and they come to Portugal as the most successful duo competing here from the 2010 season.

But Greece will have to keep a close eye on Italy and Germany. Both of these countries raced in the A-final at the final Rowing World Cup in Lucerne and Germany has strengthened their pair by joining 2010 under-23 champion, Anton Braun with Andreas Kuffner.

Don’t discount Marko Marjanovic and Nikola Stojic of Serbia. When Marjanovic and Stojic get their rhythm going they are definite medal contenders. The very experienced Stojic, with his former partner, took silver in this event at last year’s European Champs.

Women’s Double Sculls (W2x)

Sisters Jitka and Lenka Antosova of the Czech Republic are young and ever-improving. They were silver medallists last year at these European Championships and this year they raced to fourth at the final Rowing World Cup against the best in the world. But the Czech’s have a new challenge. Portugal sees the return of the 2009 World Champions Magdalena Fularczyk and Julia Michalska of Poland. Both athletes have been out of training since injury at the start of the year. They resumed full training in June this year and the European Championships will be their comeback test.

Watch out too for Germany’s Annekatrin Thiele and Stephanie Schiller. This talented duo are in their first season together and still looking to strike their full potential. Then there’s the reigning European Champions, Italy. Laura Schiavone returns with her long-term partner, Elisabetta Sancassani.

Men’s Double Sculls (M2x)

Reigning European Champions, Allar Raja and Kaspar Taimsoo of Estonia will have to take it up a step to defend their title this year. Turning up at the start line in Portugal will be the current World Champions, Eric Knittel and Stephan Krueger of Germany. Knittel, however, has had a slow season as he fought off an injury. This could leave the big gold medal contender to be Cedric Berrest and Julien Bahain of France. Berrest and Bahain won the final Rowing World Cup in Lucerne and look to be carrying out a very carefully designed season training plan.

The Estonian’s, though, finished fourth in Lucerne and will be going for gold. Watch out too for Switzerland. Florian Stofer and André Vonarburg were second last year at the European Championships and finished fifth in Lucerne. There is no doubt this race will be tough and a medal will be well-earned.

Men’s Four (M4-)

Greece is the reigning European Champions and they have strengthened their boat by adding the world medalling pair of Nikolaos and Apostolos Gkountoulas to the crew of Ioannis Tsilis and Stergios Papachristos. But despite this definite crew strengthening, Greece will have some stiff competition coming at them from France.

The new French line up has already shown great form by finishing third at the final Rowing World Cup in July. But keep an eye out too for the Germans and Czech Republic. Germany are regularly strong in this event and have been working out the right combination all season. The line up of Bertram, Urban, Kaeufer and Eichner are no doubt the boat that will race at this year’s World Rowing Championships. The Czechs come to Portugal with the crew that won silver at the European Champs in 2009.

Women’s Single Sculls (W1x)

Ekaterina Karsten-Khodotovitch of Belarus is currently the top active female rower in the world. She is the reigning European and World Champion and it would be an absolutely enormous upset if she is beaten. The most likely one to be doing the upsetting is Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic. Knapkova started off the season slowly due to illness but she still managed to finish second at the final Rowing World Cup in Lucerne.
Sweden’s Frida Svensson has been showing some good speed this season. Svensson finished third behind Knapkova at the Lucerne Rowing World Cup after holding Karsten’s pace for the majority of the race. Don’t discount Russia’s rowing stalwart, Julia Levina. Levina has been plugging away in the single and deserves a breakthrough.

Men’s Single Sculls (M1x)

Mindaugas Griskonis of Lithuania may be the reigning European Champion, but this year the competition has increased ten-fold with Griskonis facing some very stiff competition. Lining up in Portugal is winner of the final Rowing World Cup, Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic. Synek comes to Portugal from a season in which he has not lost a single major race. Synek, who has been racing the single for the last five years, is looking unstoppable and almost comfortable as he leads this incredibly competitive event.

Olympic Champion, Olaf Tufte of Norway is also lining up in Portugal and although he hasn’t been such a shining light this season, Tufte knows how to plan his season to pull it off when it counts. Tufte will be keeping an eye on fellow Scandinavian, Sweden’s Lassi Karonen. Tufte and Karonen know each other well and are known to train together.

Lightweight Women’s Double Sculls (LW2x)

After taking World Champion status in this event last year as well as winning the European Championships, Alexandra Tsiavou of Greece has spent this season in the single. But she is back with her World Champion partner, Christina Giazitzudou for these European Championships.

The talented Greek duo will have to gel quickly as they are to face Germany’s Anja Noske and Daniela Reimer as well as Magdalena Kemnitz and Agnieszka Renc of Poland. Germany and Poland both raced in the A-final at the Lucerne Rowing World Cup finishing fifth and sixth respectively. But final times were incredibly tight meaning that Portugal will be quite a showdown.

Lightweight Men’s Double Sculls (LM2x)

Greece is the reigning European Champions in this event and has the reputation of always putting together a powerful team for this regatta. This year they are boating a new combination of Panagiotis Magdanis and Ilias Pappas. The internationally untried combination will be a relative mystery to the field.

The much better-known combinations are Germany and Italy. Linus Lichtschlag and Lars Hartig of Germany are perhaps the favourites coming to Portugal following a very successful international season so far that had them medal at both of the events they raced. But Lorenzo Bertini and Elia Luini of Italy will be very tough competition. Bertini and Luini finished second last year at the European Championships and have not yet reached their true potential.

Watch out too for Portugal. Pedro Fraga and Nuno Mendes are the home-country’s biggest chance for a rowing medal and the duo have mastered a devastating closing sprint that is likely to pay dividends.

Lightweight Men’s Four (LM4-)

Last year France won this event at the European Championships, but their 2010 season so far has been a bit sluggish. Unlike the Danes. Pedersen, Vilhelmsen, Winther and Joergensen have been battling with Great Britain for the gold medal spot and with the British not racing in Portugal, Denmark become the ones to beat.

From here the depth of this field is great. Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Serbia were all in the A-final at the Lucerne Rowing World Cup and with a spread of less than six seconds separating these boats. This event is well-known for its tight races and even tighter finishes so picking the final medallists is never a sure thing.

Keep an eye open too for the Germans. They are the reigning World Champions but the 2010 season has not smiled kindly on them so far. One of the twins, Matthias Schoemann-Finck, is out of the boat due to injury and Bastian Seibt has been filling in. Seibt has now had more time to slot in and they will be looking to step up in Portugal.

Women’s Quadruple Sculls (W4x)

Ukraine finished second at the final Rowing World Cup in Lucerne and since then they have been tinkering with their line up swapping in Olena Buryak for Tetlana Kolesnikova. This is the country that holds the current World and European Champion title and they will be putting a huge amount of emphasis on doing well in this event.

Germany, on the other hand, feels a certain level of ownership of this event that the country dominated for so many years. The Germans have retained the line up of Oppelt, Baer, Manker and Richter that finished third at the Lucerne Rowing World Cup. Watch out too for the Italians. They took silver last year but they have doubled up with Schiavone and Sancassani also racing in the double. If this duo don’t come out a bit overcooked, they will add a lot of speed to the Italian boat.

Men’s Quadruple Sculls (M4x)

Reigning World and Olympic Champions, Poland have had a dismal season so far to the extent that they didn’t even make the A-final at the Lucerne Rowing World Cup. Instead Croatia has taken over as the boat to beat. Will Poland be able to come back in Portugal? Will Germany be able to close the very tiny gap on Croatia? Has swapping Igor Salov into the Russian quad given them more speed?

This race will see four of the finalists from Lucerne racing and with Germany finishing a mere quarter of a second behind Croatia at that race, there is little doubt things will be tight in Portugal.

Italy are also on the scene with their star line up of Raineri, Stefanini, Venier and Sartori. Look out for Ukraine as well. Although they have a new line up, they are still the reigning European Champions.

Women’s Eight (W8+)

It will be difficult to look past the Romanians in this event. Whenever the United States are out of the picture, Romania retains a tight grasp on the top spot. Rowing in Romania puts a huge amount of emphasis on the women’s eight and the crew raced at the second Rowing World Cup this season in Munich finishing first.

Fighting to be in the medals will definitely be the Germans. They have tweaked the crew that finished sixth at Lucerne, changing two of the rowers. The Netherlands are also there, also with two changes from the fourth place finishing crew from Lucerne. Don’t look past Belarus as well. They were second last year at the European Rowing Championships and will continue to improve as a crew.

Men’s Eight (M8+)

Poland has a dream of racing an eight at the 2012 London Olympics. So far the crew has had mixed results. They are the reigning European Champions but this year in Portugal they will face the Germans. Germany finished first at the final Rowing World Cup in Lucerne, while Poland made it into fifth position.

This puts Germany in the spot of being favourites with Poland in the unenviable spot of trying to defend their title. The prediction is that Germany and Poland will be the crews to beat for the medals.

Never discount the Dutch. They continually pull through to secure medals when you least expect it. Italy is also a crew to watch. Some very accomplished names are sprinkled throughout the crew including the experienced Raffaello Leonardo in stroke seat.