World Cup III - Luzern: 9th place

In the weekend of 7 to 9 July, the third World Cup took place in beautiful Lucerne on the Rotsee. I got to start in the light double together with Niels Vanzandweghe, after only two weeks of training together.

A new format was used in the heats, namely time trials. Not my favourite way of racing, we misfired a bit, especially as it was our very first race together. During the time trials, we achieved third place and were thus passed on to the resits the very same day. We rowed the resits very strongly, even achieving a national record of 6:10". With this first place we were still able to qualify for the semi-finals. The semi-final was a tough job to complete and we came up just short of third place, in the second 500m we had bad water and due to lack of kilometres together we missed a lot there. So it became a B-final for us and what a B-final it was! Halfway through the race we were almost in last place, but with a very strong second 1000m and a good final sprint we still managed to get a 3rd place. A blood-curdling race in which 5 boats crossed the finish line within 1 second.

A good start to a new combination. For me, these are hopeful results with the prospect of qualifying at the World Championships in Belgrade where we need a Top 7 place to qualify for the Olympics.

All results: Click here for the full results