26 July 2018

In a press release from yesterday, FISA writes:

The 2018 European Championships in Glasgow, Great Britain, has attracted entries from 32 European nations with nearly 500 rowers competing for the title of European Champion.

This is the first time the multi-sport European Championships is taking place and rowing is one of seven sports that are participating between the host cities of Glasgow and Berlin. These sports will compete over a period of 10 days from 2 to 12 August with rowing taking place at Strathclyde, just outside of Glasgow, between 2 and 5 August.

The rowing programme includes 17 boat classes with the biggest entry coming in the men’s single sculls. Strong competition is expected between the 2016 Olympic silver medallist in the single sculls, Damir Martin of Croatia, and the 2016 Olympic bronze medallist in the double sculls, Kjetil Borch of Norway, with World Cup medallist Roman Roeoesli of Switzerland also competing. The women’s single sculls features the current World Champion Jeannine Gmelin of Switzerland up against 2016 European Champion Magdalena Lobnig of Austria. Gmelin remains unbeaten so far this season.

Italy is sending the largest team with entries in 16 of the 17 boat classes. The World and European Champion in the men’s pair Matteo Lodo will be racing with new partner Vincenzo Abbagnale. Italy has also entered the same men’s four line-up who are the reigning European Champions.

The Netherlands, Russia and Great Britain are all sending 14 crews per country and there will be high expectations for the Dutch lightweight women’s double of Ilse Paulis and Marieke Keijser. They won the 2018 World Rowing Cup series and look to be the crew to beat. Host nation Great Britain’s hopes will be on their men’s quadruple sculls who come to Glasgow having won at the third World Rowing Cup in July. The British men’s eight is also expecting good results with Olympic Champion Mohamed Sbihi sitting in the middle of the boat. They will face the World and European Champions Germany.

Racing begins next week on Thursday 2 August at 9:30 BST with heats that will then progress through repechages, semifinals and finals. The finals will take place on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 August. All four days of racing will be live-streamed on www.worldrowing.com. The finals will be broadcast live (in full or in part) on at least 24 European television channels plus Eurosport.

Entries and regatta information can be found here.

The European Rowing Championships is open to the 46 European national rowing federations, including Israel.