World Rowing Cup returns to Switzerland

The ‘lake of the gods’ in Lucerne, Switzerland sees the World Rowing Cup rowing back again with the second in the series of three due to get under way from 21 to 23 May 2021. Forty-one countries are taking part.

The 2020 rowing season was almost completely cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic making rowers wait until 2021 to return to one of the world’s most popular rowing venues.

World Rowing Cup II is taking place directly after Lucerne plays host to the World Rowing Final Olympic Qualification Regatta (15-17 May 2021) and a number of the athletes competing in this qualification regatta are staying on to race again at the World Cup. It is also likely to be the last chance for some athletes to race internationally before the July Tokyo Olympic Games.

The Netherlands is sending the most athletes with 16 boats competing – some boat classes having more than one Dutch boat entered. Italy and Great Britain also have a large team with 13 boats each entered. Host nation, Switzerland has come out strong boating 11 crews.

Despite the current pandemic conditions, a number of countries are coming to Lucerne from outside of Europe including China, Cuba, Peru and the United States. For the United States Kara Kohler will be competing in the women’s single sculls.

Kohler last raced internationally nearly two years ago at the 2019 World Rowing Championships where she took bronze. More recently Kohler was the first rower to be selected for the US Tokyo Olympic team when she won singles selection trials. Competing against Kohler will be reigning World Champion Sanita Puspure of Ireland and 2019 fourth-placed sculler, Victoria Thornley of Great Britain. But all eyes will be on local hero Jeanine Gmelin of Switzerland. Gmelin recently took third at the 2021 European Rowing Championships.

The men’s single sculls has attracted the most entries with 30 scullers taking part. Leading the way is likely to be Oliver Zeidler of Germany. Zeidler is the reigning World Champion and has been on a winning streak this season with a win at the European Championships and World Cup I. Denmark’s Sverri Nielsen is back to race Zeidler as well as World Cup silver medallist Kjetil Borch of Norway.

Denmark is testing a new combination by bringing their top women’s single sculler, Fie Udby Erichsen in the pair with Hedvig Rasmussen. Erichsen and Rasmussen will be racing at the Final Olympic Qualification regatta with the aim of qualifying the pair for Tokyo. For this World Cup they will be up against ten other crews including Great Britain’s Helen Glover and Polly Swann. Glover is the gold medallist in the pair from the Rio Olympics while Rasmussen took bronze in Rio.

Racing begins on Friday 21 May at 9:00 CET with heats. The races will then progress through repechages, semifinals and finals then begin at 10:05 CET on Sunday 23 May. The finals will be live-streamed on www.worldrowing.com.

Entries and regatta information can be found here – click on “Event Documents”

The World Rowing media guide can be found here.

The World Rowing Cup series was launched in 1997 and consists of a series of three events. The overall World Rowing Cup winners are determined after the third event. This year, the three stages of the series are Zagreb, Croatia (30 April-2 May), Lucerne, Switzerland (21-23 May) and Sabaudia, Italy (4-6 June). All events have been confirmed.