The pandemic could not slow down the excitement of staging an on-water regatta and Poznan, Poland is the location. More than 570 top European rowers from 31 nations will head to Poznan for the 2020 European Rowing Championships from 9-11 October 2020.
As a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic, this will be the third on-water competition for the 2020 international rowing season following the staging of the European Rowing Under 23 Championships in Duisburg, Germany and the European Rowing Junior Championships in Belgrade, Serbia – both in September.
Racing will take place on Lake Malta in the heart of Poznan. This is a prime international regatta course which regularly hosts international rowing and canoeing events.
Italy is boating the biggest team with entries in 21 out of the 22 boat classes. Germany and Netherlands will also send large teams with entries in, respectively, 19 and 17 boat classes.
The men’s single sculls has attracted a large and very competitive field of 23 boats. The reigning World and European Champion Oliver Zeidler of Germany will defend his title against Sverri Nielsen of Denmark and Kjetil Borch of Norway. These three athletes made up the podium at the 2019 World Rowing Championships.
Also in the mix for the men’s single are Stefanos Ntouskos of Greece, silver medal at the 2019 World Rowing Under 23 Championships, Alexandar Vyazovkin of Russia, 2020 World Rowing Indoor Champion and 2016 Rio Olympic medallist Damir Martin of Croatia.
There has been great interest in the men’s double sculls with 19 entries. 2018 World Champions from France Hugo Boucheron and Matthieu Androdias are back together and will aim at repeating their winning performance. The Polish double of Miroslaw Zietarski and Mateuz Biskup will be a serious contender as well as Stephan Krueger and Marc Weber of Germany.
On the women’s side, the lightweight women’s double sculls competition will be highlighted by 2019 World Championships silver medallists Marieke Keijser and Ilse Paulis from the Netherlands taking on Claire Bove and Laura Tarantola from France and Ionela-Livia Cozmiuc and Gianina-Elena Beleaga from Romania.
Racing will take place also in para events with the PR1 men’s single sculls likely to be a showdown between Alexey Chuvahev of Russia and Roman Polianskyi of Ukraine.
The European Rowing Championships have been staged since 1893 and it is one of the longest running sport championships on the international calendar. After a hiatus from 1974, it was reinstated in 2007 and in 2018 it was part of the inaugural multi-sport European Multi-sport Championships held in Glasgow. The European Rowing Championships is open to the 46 European national rowing federations, including Israel.
The Poznan Organising Committee and the Poznan City and State medical authorities have carefully followed the WHO and World Rowing safe event guidelines to establish the necessary and appropriate preventive measures during the event. Appropriate plans have been put in place to ensure that the event is staged with the lowest possible risk for virus transmission.
Racing begins on Friday 9 October 2020 at 9:00 CET with heats and progresses through repechages, semifinals and to the finals at 9:50 CET on Sunday 11 October. The finals will be live-streamed on www.worldrowing.com.
Entries can be found here. http://www.worldrowing.com/events/2020-european-rowing-championships/schedule-results
