Olympic Rowing Regatta: Media Highlights on 6 August

While the Guardian focused on the Serbian men's coxless pair boat flipping in the unstable wind conditions, the CNN re-aired an older report featuring the Angolan lightweight men's double scull that had secured the African nation the first Olympic rowing appearance ever.

České veslování má juniorského mistra světa na skifu

ENGLISH TITLE: Czech Rowing Has a Junior World Champion in Single Sculls

Veslař Michal Plocek z Uherského Hradiště dnes na juniorském mistrovství světa suverénně vyhrál finále skifu. Na umělé dráze v bulharském Plovdivu ujel dvoukilometrovou závodní trať ve velmi rychlém čase 7:03,47. Druhý Slovinec Jernej Markovc v cíli zaostal o 5,54 sekundy. Bronz získal Číňan Kang-kang Li (Ganggang Li).

Čop and Knapková Grab the Golden Cups of Philadelphia

Slovenian rower Iztok Čop has won the men’s singles race at the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, overtaking Kenneth Jurkowski of the United States in second. Last year’s world champion, Ondřej Synek of the Czech Republic finished in third, followed by Čop’s compatriot Luka Špik in fourth.

It looks like the retirement of Slovenia’s most successful Olympian from top rowing events last year started his victorious spree throughout regional rowing races.

The trophy for women’s singles has been taken by Czech sculler Mirka Knapková. Her rivals were Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus, finishing second, with last year’s world champion, Sweden’s Frida Svensson, in third. The fourth place went to Iva Obradović of Serbia.

Screenshot from the official website of the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta.

The regatta was held on 13 and 14 May 2011. It featured a rich variety of events, with singles, coxless pairs, coxed fours, and eights divided into student categories (varsity, collegiate, and frosh/novice crews). The competition of corporate eights featured crews rowing for well-known brands such as Coca-Cola, Ernst & Young, and Vanguard. World elite men’s and women’s single scullers pursued the Golden Cup trophies.

Full list of results is available on the official website of the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta.

Karonen Beats Synek at Czech 6K Open

Czech single sculler and last year’s world champion Ondřej Synek finished second in the Czech Long-Distance Open Championships yesterday. A regular participant in the event, Sweden’s Lassi Karonen takes gold.

Synek was some 26 seconds slower than Karonen, and was closely followed by his teammate David Jirka in third.

Women’s singles witnessed a similar surprise as the Czech number one, Mirka Knapková, was overtaken by the Czech women’s double sculler Jitka Antošová. The difference between their finish times was over 17 seconds. Bronze goes to Antošová’s sister and double scull teammate, Lenka.

In men’s pairs, too, elder crews were all beaten by an under-23 duo, Jakub Koloc and Petr Melichar.

Results have been posted on the website of the Czech Rowing Association, with an abstract also published by the Czech news website Idnes.cz.

Hořín Lateral Canal opening into the Labe (Elbe) river on the outskirts of the town of Mělník. Source: Thorsten Bachner, Wikimedia Commons.

The race venue was the Hořín Lateral Canal north of Prague. The narrow waterway was built in early 20th century as a ship shortcut between the Vltava and Labe (Elbe) rivers. In the recent years, Czech rowing championships on the 6 kilometre distance take place here every spring. The head race of singles and pairs serves as a preliminary trial for the Czech national team selection.

My Nomination of Vaclav Chalupa for the 2010 Thomas Keller Medal

I sent the following text to the FISA as a nomination proposal on 9 March 2010, the closing date for submissions. Chalupa's nomination as a finalist for this year's Thomas Keller Medal was finally published on the FISA web on 3 June and included quotes from my proposal as well as from someone else's submission. It was good to see that more people took the initiative to support Chalupa. Please, read further if you want to remember the highlights of this Czech man's life with rowing.

Main dates of the career:
1989-1993, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2007, 2009


Czech rower Vaclav Chalupa in 2009, the last year of his performance career. Source: YouTube screen grab.

1. Success at the international level, e.g. medal count taking level of competition into account:

Vaclav Chalupa Jr. (whose father, Vaclav Chalupa Sr., finished fifth in coxed pair in the 1964 Olympics) officially announced retirement from rowing after last year's world championships in Poznan, Poland. A Czech daily has characterised Chalupa's rowing career as going “from silver to silver” in a reference to the medals he took in his first (1989) and last (2009) senior world championships. During that time, Chalupa collected one Olympic silver (1992), five silver and three bronze medals from world championships (silver: 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 2009; bronze: 1995, 1998, 2001), and one gold from European championships (2007), in addition to four fourth places at world championships (1999, 2002, 2003, 2005). He has competed at six Olympic Games, from Seoul 1988 to Beijing 2008.