Rowing’s coastal championships and beach sprints achieve record entries

The World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals and World Rowing Coastal Championships get underway later this month and a surge in entries shows a record number of athletes from a record number of countries preparing to compete in Oeiras, Portugal.

The World Rowing Coastal Championships has attracted 34 nations from as far away as Japan, New Zealand and the United States. The regatta goes from 30 September to 2 October. Over 700 athletes will be competing including Tokyo Olympic rowers. Women’s single sculls bronze medallist at Tokyo, Magdalena Lobnig will be racing with her sister Katharina for Austria in the coastal women’s double sculls.

Silver medallist in the Tokyo Olympic men’s single sculls, Kjetil Borch of Norway will race in the men’s double sculls with fellow Olympian Jan Helvig.

The British have put together a men’s coxed quadruple sculls from a mixture of boat specialists. Jack Beaumont won silver in Tokyo in the men’s quadruple sculls. He will be joined by Olympic finalist in the men’s four, Matthew Rossiter and British national team member Richard Clarke along with James Fox who has only just returned from the Paralympic Games where he took gold in the PR3 mixed coxed four.

The men’s single sculls has attracted over 70 entries and sees the return of 2019 coastal champion Adrian Miramon of Spain. Miramon will face 2019 silver medallist Lars Wichert of Germany. Wichert will come to Oerias on the back of winning the Hamburg Ironman. Also racing in the single is 2012 Olympian Tunisia’s Mohamed Taieb.

The women’s single sculls is headlined by Diana Dymchenko of Ukraine. Dymchenko is going for four in a row having won the single at the past three coastal championships. She will face Jessica Berra of France who took the silver at the 2019 coastal championships. And returning to racing is Maria Berg of Sweden. Berg finished fourth in 2019.

Preceding the coastal championships, the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals, also in Oeiras, will be raced from 24 to 26 September. The Beach Sprint Finals debuted in 2019 and as it was not able to take place last year, this will be its second edition.

The Beach Sprints has 25 countries entered with just under 200 athletes doing the short course, beach start style race. Borch has put is name down for the men’s single and he will face fellow Olympian and home favourite Pedro Fraga of Portugal. But bronze medallist from 2019 Ivan Bove of France will be the more experienced in this boat class.

For the women’s single the bronze medallist from 2019 Zoi Fitsiou of Greece will be the one to watch among the 15 countries entered.

Beach Sprints are to feature at the 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Senegal and have also been proposed as an Olympic event to the International Olympic Committee. This is the first time that junior boat classes will be racing including the singles and mixed double sculls.