Croatians chasing rowing gold at European Championships 

Sinković brothers (Photo credit: Predrag Vuckovic)

The European Rowing Championships, part of the multi-sport European Championships in Munich, take place from August 11 to 14 in Oberschleissheim, not far from Munich.

553 rowers from 33 European nations will compete at the European Rowing Championships, and Croatia will be represented by Dora Dragičević in the light singles, Ivana and Josipa Jurković in the coxless pairs and Martin and Valent Sinković in the doubles.

The biggest expectations are from the Sinković brothers, who are undefeated since returning to the doubles discipline.

“We’ve had a bit of an injury problem since the last World Cup in Lucerne, so we haven’t fully prepared, but I’m confident that we’re quite ready. We are certainly not at 100 percent, but I think we can win even in this form. The competition is quite strong, we think that the biggest competitors will be Lithuania and Spain, and the Irish could also surprise. They have strong names, and we have never met them, so it will be interesting to see. I hope that we will do three top races and that we will not feel that we are missing a few days of preparation,” said Martin Sinković.

(Photo credit: Predrag Vuckovic)

The Jurković sisters have strong competition at this European Championship. Two members of the Dutch crew, Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester, who won the bronze medal in the coxless fours at the Tokyo Olympics, have now moved to the coxless pairs, and there are also the British women, Esme Booth and Emily Ford, who won gold at the the World Cup in Belgrade.

“We made excellent preparations, in 10 days we covered more than 300 kilometres on the water, in addition to cycling and the gym. We are getting back in shape after Josipa’s surgery and everything is slowly falling into place, we see that we need more time to adjust and grow, but we are going step by step. Our current goal is to make it to the A final, which would be a great success for us because this is one of the stronger European Championships. The competition is very good, mostly the medalists from the eights and fours have been placed in the pairs, but we are not giving up and we believe that everything will be fine,” said Ivana Jurković.

Ivana and Josipa Jurković (Photo: Supplied)

The competition starts on Thursday 11 August at 9:00 CET with races then progressing through repechages, semi-finals and finals to be held on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 August 2022.

All four days of races, repechages, semi-finals and finals will be streamed live on www.worldrowing.com.

All race reports, live broadcasts, results, photos and comments can be followed on the FISA official website www.worldrowing.com.