editORiAl
OLYMPIC PROMISE
Olympic qualification is now well under way and by next spring a total of 550
athletes and 202 boats will have qualified to race at rowing’s pinnacle event.
Beijing’s brand-new Shunyi Olympic Aquatic Park was inaugurated by tomorrow’s
heroes at the 2007 World Rowing Junior Championships, which served as a test
event for next year’s Olympic Games.
© FISA
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Up to date, the African Qualification Regatta
(held last July in Algiers, Algeria) and the
WorldRowingChampionships (held end
of August to early September in Munich,
Germany) have seen 39 countries and 138
boats secure their presence at Beijing’s
2008 Olympic Games. The last spots will be
allocated at three remaining qualification
regattas: the Latin American Qualification
Regatta (Rio de Janeiro, November 2007), the
Asian Qualification Regatta (Shanghai, April
2008), and less than two months before the
2008OlympicGames Opening Ceremony,
the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta
(Poznan, June 2008).
History will be made when rowing’s first
Paralympic champions will be crowned
next year. Sixty-four adaptive athletes
qualified through the 2007 World Rowing
Championships in Munich, where the level of
adaptive performance had clearly improved
compared to previous years with new World
Best Times set in three boat classes. A final
Paralympic Qualification Regatta will be held
during the 2008 Rowing World Cup regatta
in Munich.
At the 2007 World Rowing Championships
in Munich, three nations qualified the most
boats and athletes: Germany ( 12 boats, 42
athletes), the USA ( 11 boats, 43 athletes) and
Great Britain ( 11 boats, 41 athletes).
In this magazine issue you will discover more
about some of this year’s Olympic qualifiers,
such as Anna Mickelson of the USA women’s
eight who after Olympic silver at Athens in
2004 is still in pursuit of gold, or younger
talents who will make their first Olympic
appearance next year, including Emma Twigg
of New Zealand in the single and Alexandra
Tsiavou of Greece in the lightweight double.
Three long-standing champions have still
not had enough and, for them, the highlight
of the season was not so much Olympic
qualification but rather winning a third
consecutive World Championship title. Other
top crews, such as the Dutch men’s four, have
been showing a steady performance over the
past Olympic cycle and seem to be storing
up surprises for next year’s big race.
If the 2007WorldRowingChampionships
are any guide, the Olympic Regatta will
be one of the most exciting ever, with the
standard of rowing at the top reaching new
heights. The women’s eight race, for example,
was described by many veteran World
Championship watchers as the best ever –
with each crew in the event taking its turn
at the back of the field and most also having
a turn at the front in a “never say die” effort
to earn one of the five qualification places.
Keep watching…
John Boultbee
Chair of FISA’s Competitive Commission
