Credit: World Rowing
Champions crowned on Lago di Varese
Exactly six months on from the 2020 edition, the 2021 European Rowing Championships in Varese, Italy provided thrilling racing and a strong sense that we are in for an exciting season leading towards the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Great Britain was absent from the 2020 European Championships, but demonstrated that they had been training hard as they topped the 2021 medal table with 12 medals. Home nation Italy were second in the final medal standings, with the Netherlands in third.
Norway took the first gold medal of the Championships with reigning World Champion Birgit Skarstein winning the PR1 women’s single sculls. Ukrainian Roman Polianskyi defended his European title from 2020 in the equivalent men’s event. Meanwhile, Great Britain proved they are still a force to be reckoned with in the para events, winning gold in both the PR2 mixed double sculls and the PR3 mixed coxed four.
The women’s pair saw the return of Olympic Champion Helen Glover racing with Polly Swann to take gold for Great Britain. In the men’s pair, the Sinkovic brothers of Croatia improved on their silver medal from last year to win gold this year.
One of the closest races of the Championships was in the men’s double sculls, with less than a second separating all six boats at the halfway marker. Whilst the Netherlands were first to break away from the pack, it was France that eventually claimed gold with the Netherlands winning silver and Great Britain the bronze.
The women’s four will be a new event at the Tokyo Olympic Games and it looks as though it could be an exciting boat class with the defending European Champions from the Netherlands just managing to hold off a final charge from an impressive crew from Ireland. Meanwhile, the men’s four was one of the most hotly contested boat classes of the Championships with positions being exchanged throughout the race. Great Britain eventually took the gold, but it will be fascinating to see how things progress later in the season.
One of the biggest upsets of the Championships came in the men’s quadruple sculls where Italy, on home water, held off the defending European and World Champions the Netherlands.
In the single sculls, Germany’s Oliver Zeidler indicated that he was back on form. Having missed out on the medals last year, Zeidler dominated his race this year to take gold. Newcomer Hanna Prakhatsen won an impressive gold for Russia in the women’s single sculls having won the same boat class at the European Olympic Qualification Regatta just four days previously.
The last race of the Championships was the men’s eight and, although Germany led for the first half of the 2,000m race, they were overhauled by Great Britain in the second half and then pushed out of the medals by Romania and the Netherlands.
The Championships was run under strict COVID-19 protocols. During the "return to home testing", three members of the Turkish rowing federation team tested positive for COVID-19. Following the Varese local government’s COVID-19 response protocol, the whole delegation was immediately removed from the venue. The three positive persons were moved to a dedicated isolation hotel, with the rest of the delegation moved to a separate hotel, and all Turkish crews were withdrawn from the regatta. Compliance with COVID protocols at the venue are monitored continuously by the organising committee’s COVID Manager, and World Rowing is confident that all protocols have been respected and there has not been contact between other teams and the Turkish team.