Men's Crews to Watch at the 2022 World Rowing Championships

With the biggest event of the 2022 season rapidly kicking off at the end of this week, we are giving you a look in the coming days at the crews to watch at this year’s World Rowing Championships. Today, we take a look at the openweight men’s crews.

Men’s Pair (M2-)

Entries: 19

Reigning World Rowing Champions: SINKOVIC Martin, SINKOVIC Valent (CRO)

Until the recent European Rowing Championships, you’d probably have placed Great Britain’s Oliver Wynne-Griffith and Tom George as favourites in the boat class, but they got overhauled by Romania’s Marius Cozmiuc and Sergiu Bejan in Munich, who earlier in the season had been nowhere near them. The New Zealand boat is definitely another line-up that will challenge Great Britain and Romania though. Matt Macdonald and Tom Mackintosh were in the Olympic gold medal-winning eight in Tokyo last year and have already shown their strength in the pair this season. Harley Moore and Alexander Hill of Australia are also likely to be challenging for the medals. They took silver at World Rowing Cup III earlier this season. Don’t write off the young Stankunas brothers of Lithuania either, Dovydas and Domantas won silver in this boat class at the World Rowing U23 Championships and came fourth at the recent European Rowing Championships.

Men’s Double Sculls (M2x)

Entries: 25

Reigning World Rowing Champions: LIU Zhiyu, ZHANG Liang (CHN)

It’s hard to look beyond Croatia’s Martin and Valent Sinkovic in this boat class; they are unbeaten so far this season, having raced at all three World Rowing Cups, and the European Rowing Championships. However, the gold medal winners of this boat class from last year’s Olympic Games are back together! Hugo Boucheron and Matthieu Androdias of France have competed in the single sculls so far this season with varying success, but will be back in the double scull in Racice and we can’t wait to see how they perform! Other boats who might make the podium will include Spain’s Aleix Garci Garcia Pujolar and Rodrigo Conde Romero and Australia’s David Bartholot and Caleb Antill. This is another boat class where a relatively young Lithuanian line-up has been challenging all season. Armandas Kelmelis and Dovydas Nemeravicius were in the A final at both the first and third World Rowing Cups, and won bronze at the European Rowing Championships.

Men’s Four (M4-)

Entries: 19

Reigning World Rowing Champions: WILANGOWSKI Mateusz, BURDA Mikolaj, BRZEZINSKI Marcin, SZPAKOWSKI Michal (POL)

We are expecting fireworks between Australia and Great Britain in this boat class! The Australian boat has three of their Olympic silver medal-winning crew on board and has won a gold and a silver at World Rowing Cups this season. The British combination is new for this season and, in this line-up, has also won a World Cup gold and European Championship gold. When the two crews last raced against each other, in Lucerne, Australia led for the majority of the race but were overhauled by Great Britain in the closing stages in one of the most exciting finishes. Romania, who took bronze on that occasion, just 0.10 seconds behind Australia, will also be vying for a place on the podium; the crew contains three Olympic silver medalists and has had a good season so far. The Dutch four has also been consistent this season, winning silver at World Rowing Cups I and II and also the European Rowing Championships. Poland is reigning World Champions in this boat class but haven’t made the podium so far this season so will have their work cut out to defend their title.

Men’s Single Sculls (M1x)

Entries: 40

Reigning World Rowing Champions: ZEIDLER Oliver (GER)

By far the biggest boat class of the Championships, with 40 nations represented, this boat class is going to be epic! The field includes the reigning Olympic, World and European Champions which, perhaps rather unusually, are currently all different athletes; Greece’s Stefanos Ntouskos, Germany’s Oliver Zeidler and Melvin Twellaar of the Netherlands. However, there are so many other big names in the field, including European bronze medallist Kristian Vasilev of Bulgaria, and Great Britain’s Graeme Thomas, who has had a strong season with a gold and bronze at the World Rowing Cups. Olympic silver medallist from Norway, Kjetil Borch will also be one to watch. Borch hasn’t raced much this season, but did win bronze at the last World Rowing Championships in 2019. Lithuania’s Mindaugas Griskonis was part of that incredible men’s single sculls final in 2019 where the top five scullers finished within 1.03 seconds of each other. Griskonis missed out on a medal by 0.34 seconds that time so he’ll be looking for revenge this time!

Men’s Quadruple Sculls (M4x)

Entries: 17

Reigning World Rowing Champions: UITTENBOGAARD Dirk, WIERSMA Abe, WIETEN Tone, METSEMAKERS Koen (NED)

This is a boat class that is fairly wide open. All three medal-winning crews from the European Rowing Championships will return; Italy, Poland and Romania. Those three crews had also already all picked up medals at the World Cups earlier this season. However, at the World Rowing Championships, China will come into the mix, a nation that is often a force to be reckoned with in sculling and indeed this crew won gold at World Rowing Cups I and II. The Netherlands took gold at the last World Rowing Championships, in 2019, but have been inconsistent so far this season, finishing eighth at the European Rowing Championships. The British crew has two of their silver medal-winning Olympic crew from last year and has appeared to be rebuilding this season; they finished fourth, just missing out on the podium at the Europeans.

Men’s Eight (M8+)

Entries: 11

Reigning World Rowing Champions: WEISSENFELD Johannes, FOLLERT Laurits, REINHARDT Christopher, JOHANNESEN Torben, SCHNEIDER Jakob, JAKSCHIK Malte, SCHMIDT Richard, OCIK Hannes, SAUER Martin (GER)

Germany are reigning World Champions in this boat class, but the last World Rowing Championships was back in 2019 and there is only one member of that crew returning, Torben Johannesen. Since their Olympic silver in Tokyo, several of the German men’s eight retired and a relatively young new line-up has been evolving which was so far picked up gold at World Rowing Cup II and bronze at World Rowing Cup III. Meanwhile, the Great Britain men’s eight has been unstoppable and they have won gold at every event they have entered so far. Other Nations to keep an eye on include Australia, which has won silver at two of the World Rowing Cups, the Netherlands, who claimed silver after recovering from a boat-stopping crab at the European Rowing Championships, and also Italy, who took bronze at the European Championships. The Romanian eight is made up of rowers who are doubling up from very strong small boats so it will be interesting to see how they perform. We haven’t seen a men’s eight from the USA race so far this season so that will certainly be one to keep an eye on.

 

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