Poland can boast an unusual rowing crew: men's quadruple scull that won all top events (world championships and the Olympic Games) between 2005 and 2009, moreover in an unchanged lineup. In 2006 and 2007, they were unbeaten in all World Cup regattas. But 2010 seems to be a different season for the bow Konrad Wasielewski, Marek Kolbowicz (both of Szczecin), Michał Jeliński (of Gorzów), and the stroke Adam Korol (of Gdańsk): not only have the “Dominators” (as the Polish media call them) announced they would not go to the world championships in New Zealand this year (“from our point of view, it will be simply too late”, the Sports.pl website quoted on 16 March Marek Kolbowicz as saying); but, they seem to be going through an unprecedented performance crisis now. In the two World Cup events held so far this year, they finished third in Bled and sixth in Munich, respectively.
Polish media started to report that lineup changes are likely. There are contradictory news on who should be replaced: while the Wirtualna Polska website wrote on 18 June (before the second World Cup event in Munich) that the crew coach Aleksander Wojciechowski had spoken about Marek Kolbowicz's and Michał Jeliński's under-performance in single scull tests, the Sport.pl website claimed on 22 June that the weakest link was Konrad Wasielewski and his successor should allegedly be Piotr Licznerski, a club fellow of Korol's in Gdańsk.
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