6 August 2021

The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games regatta will start on 27 August and run until 29 August (with 30 August as a reserve day). Rowers from 25 nations will be racing on Tokyo Bay.

The mighty Birgit Skarstein of Norway will be racing in the PR1 women’s single sculls. She has not lost a race since she ended up in the fourth place in the class at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. The Norwegian sculler will meet Moran Samuel of Israel, who took a bronze in Rio. The up-and-coming Anna Shermet of Ukraine will also race for a medal in the boat class.

In the PR1 men’s single sculls, Shermet’s countryman Roman Polianskyi will be a sculler to keep your eyes on. He is the reigning World and Paralympic Champion. In this boat class is also the Australian Erik Horrie, who is the 2018 World Champion and the Rio and London Paralympic silver medallist. The silver medallist from the 2020 European Championships Aleksey Chuvashev will also compete, representing the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC), as Russia is also banned from these games.

Great Britain has won the PR3 mixed coxed four since the class started at the Paralympic Games in 2008. The British crew – James Fox, Ellen Buttrick, Giedre Rakauskaite, Oliver Stanhope and coxswain Erin Kennedy – will face Rio silver medallists the United States, which has Dani Hansen returning to the boat since Rio. In the crew is also Karen Petrik, Charley Nordin, John Tanguay and Allie Reilly. The crew is the same five athletes who won silver in the event at the 2019 World Rowing Championships in Linz, Austria.

Laurence Whiteley and Lauren Rowles of Great Britain, reigning World and Paralympic Champions in the PR2 mixed double sculls, will be challenged by Annika van der Meer and Corne de Koning of the Netherlands. In the boat class is also Australia and France.

For race results and reports go to www.worldrowing.com