U19 Daily Digest: Heats get underway

With temperatures slightly cooler than the last few days and a very slight wind, the Under 19s kicked off their racing with Heats on Lago di Varese this morning. Six of the fourteen Under 19 boat classes got underway. In many boat classes, we saw rowers who had performed well at the European Rowing Under 19 Championships earlier season repeating their performance, now on the world stage.

Greek European Under 19 champions impress on World stage

The women’s double from Greece of Styliani Natsioula and Sofia Dalidou won gold at the European Under 19 championships earlier this year by ten seconds and they are clearly hungry for more! They won their heat this morning by 7.42 seconds to progress directly to the semifinal. The Netherlands, Germany and Lithuania took the qualifying places from the other three heats.

Turkey is fastest Under 19 men’s double scull

Ahmet Ali Kabadayi and Halil Kaan Koroglu won gold at the 2022 European Rowing Under 19 Championships and are looking to repeat that here in Varese. They posted the fastest time across the five heats, 6:24.68, beating the experienced Polish duo of Piotr Sliwinski and Daniel Galeza in the process. With 27 entries in this boat class, there will be quarter finals (on Friday) and based on the times in the heats, competition should be fierce!

Chute shoots to the front

With 29 nations represented, the men’s single sculls is the biggest Under 19 boat class and there was five well-contested heats. Great Britain’s Marcus Chute may not have posted the fastest time (7:03.01) across the heats, but he did win his heat by over ten seconds, so we expect there is more to come. Of the 29 nations, there were many rowers from the developing nations group including Antonie Bonke from Vanuatu, who is over seven foot tall (210cm)!

0.2 seconds separates top two in Under 19 women’s single sculls

The 2022 European Rowing Under 19 champion in the single scull, Aikaterini Gkogkou from Greece, posted the fastest time across the three heats, winning heat three in a time of 7:35.83. In the second heat, local sculler Aurora Spirito narrowly lost a final sprint to the line against Brazil’s Maria Sousa Nunes by just 0.20 seconds. Both scullers will progress direct to the semifinals. The first heat was won by Germany’s Rebekka Falkenburg in a time of 7:41.80.

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