Rowing FISA Under 23 European Championships 2021

[Totallympics 55]

Rowing FISA Under 23 European Championships 2021

 

Kruszwica (POL) - 4 September 2021 - 5 September 2021

 

 

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[Makedonas 1,571]

No  this year.

 

Interesting selections with the Greek team. We are sending 15 rowers, but 7 of them are from the junior category. Of all other countries combined there are only 5 from the junior category. Kind of interesting that we are sending such a young team. We are third all-time in these championships on the medal table (only behind Romania and Germany) and I was hoping we could pass Germany this year as we have the same amount of gold medals as them, but with this small and young team I guess that probably won't happen.

 

We won 4 medals at the World U23s this year including 2 golds, but only 3 of those 6 athletes are coming to the European U23s, and none of them are in the same crews.

 

Perhaps the most surprising is that we are sending Anastasiadou/Fragkou in W2X. Fragkou is very good despite being a junior won bronze in that event at the World U23s, but Anastasiadou is a lightweight rower, just 165cm, and last year she won gold here as a junior in LW1X so I guess she wanted stronger competition? It's very surprising.

 

And 2004 girl Eleni Leventelli in the LW1X is also surprising. She was in LW4X last year here as well. Kind of strange that the only two times she competed for our national team were in the European U23s. She has never competed in the World or European juniors, which is crazy because she is so young and it would be interesting to see how she'd do against her peers. She can still compete in juniors even next year. I don't know why they rush to throw her into U23s and never put her in juniors.

[Makedonas 1,571]

 

Today's finals will be live streamed here.

 

[Makedonas 1,571]

So in the end Greece only got one gold medal (as well as one silver and one bronze). This is the worst we have done at the European U23s in a while although it was expected because we didn't send our strongest team. Germany also won one gold medal so now they remain in 2nd place in the all-time medal count and Greece still 3rd.

 

Big result for our girls in W2X, they totally dominated and won gold. Evangelia Anastasiadou last year won gold as an 18 year old in LW1X and now in her first year in the U23 category she switches to W2X and challenged herself with 18 year old Evangelia Fragkou and they won gold. Really happy for Fragkou who finally won a gold after three bronze medals (2020 European Juniors, 2021 World U23s, 2021 World Juniors). She should win another medal next month at the 2021 European Juniors. Both Anastasiadou and Fragkou will be in Paris, I'm pretty sure of that. Though Anastasiadou will probably be in LW2X and Fragkou in one of the other sculling events, maybe W2X or W4X.

 

Silver for our boys in M2X. Stergiakas (U23 World Champion) definitely led the way there, as his partner was the 18 year old Exarchou who didn't even make Final A of the recent world juniors (though a lot of the Greek athletes were recovering from covid then so maybe that played a role). I'm pretty confident Stergiakas will be in Paris too. He won gold at the World U23s and European U23s in 2018 and didn't compete for the national team in 2019 or 2020 but now he's back and won gold again at the World U23s (with a stronger partner than Exarchou).

 

Also big result the bronze medal for Eleni Leventelli in LW1X. She is only 17. The other two medalists were 22 and all three medalists were separated by less than one second. She's set to compete at the European Juniors next month so that could be another medal for her, and this time competing against people who are actually in her age category for a change.

 

Too bad that our girls got 4th in W2-. Obviously if we sent Bourmpou/Kyridou they would've won gold probably, but Charalampidou/Papaterpou did well considering they are both 18 even though they were very far behind the three medalists. I hope they can get a medal next month at the European Juniors.

 

Not sure what happened to our M4- out there. They won their heat and seemed to be going for a medal the first 1000m and then totally collapsed. At least they are young.

 

Our boys in LM2X got 7th, both are also just 18 and were the youngest team in the crew. Hope they can win a medal at the European Juniors as well.

 

Finally it was very disappointing to see our boys in M2- get 8th. I really expected better from them. 

 

Still, in most events we had the youngest crews and everyone else will be back next year except for Stergiakas.

 

Congratulations to our medalists: