World Championships Preview Part 1

Make no mistake about it this will be a big one! As the Olympic picture becomes more clear athletes across the globe will be in a desperate search for their niche on next year's Olympic Team. Several events such as the Light Men's double and Men's single are filled to the brim with contestants and non Olympic events like the Light Men's and Light Women's quads will now need to host a heat and final to weed out competitors to earn the right to race for a medal. All will be racing hard, hoping to make an impression on their respective Olympic committees.

With few inroads for lightweights in Bejing, athletes will need to depend on team boat rowing. World elites like Zak Purchase, last year's World Record Holder, and World Champion in the men's lightweight single are absolutely dependent on their squads to produce top ranking team boats that will compete next year. Look to the Italian lightweight squad to get a very real understanding of how difficult it is to make an Olympic team. Leonardo Pettinari, Daniele Gilardoni, and Luca Moncada; ranked 1, 2, and 6 in Worldrowing.org's top ten most decorated active athletes, will participate in this years World Championships in a non Olympic event, which will dramatically decrease, if not eliminate, their chances of traveling to Bejing next year. These three athletes alone share 23 World Championship and Olympic medals, 18 of which are gold, and yet they will participate in the Light Men's 4x, a non Olympic event.

The light men's double will host 32 boats that will compete for World Championship gold this year. Among them, participants include former World Championship singles medalists Fabrice Moreau, Zak Purchase, and Vasileios Polymeros. However, expect the real challengers for gold to come from boats that have been together for some time.

Marcello Miani and Elia Luini finished 2nd last year at World Championships and will be back to contest gold in Munich. They have been together for a little over two years but Luini has one of the most impressive rowing resumes in the world in this boat, with more than just a silver medal at the 2000 Olympics to his credit, he has yet to feel Olympic gold around his neck. Miani is, for lack of a better word, a child prodigy. Entering the senior lightweight scene last year, he quickly paired with veteran Luini and defeated Pettinari and Basilini in the Italian trial for that boat. They will be a force to be reckoned with.

World Record holders, and reigning world champion's, Denmark will have a target on their back this year. They certainly haven't shied away from any competition this year and have been undefeated during the World Cup series, attending and winning all three stops. Their only loss on the season came at the hands of Olympic heavyweight medalists Iztok Cop and Luka Spik earlier in the year at Germany’s Huegelregatta. Their punishing and consistent pacing will certainly test all comers in any conditions.

Thomas Kucharski and Robert Sycz will be back in the double again this year, a pairing that has been together for nearly a decade. They have been unbeaten in the last two Olympiads, but they never seem to show much, and always struggle with weight at World Championships. With Bejing on the horizon you can guarantee that they will improve on their 5th place finish last year. They may not reveal their top speed until next year but we could see them contend for a medal in Munich.

Great Britain, Greece, Japan, France, Hungary, and potentially Germany will need to have good races to make the final and contend for a medal next year. With the Olympics still a year away the British boat has the most potential out of this group to crack the top three, but with so many boats, even the best of the best will inevitably have to race with some urgency to make the final. Along with the Men's Straight Four, Men's single, Women's Eight, and Men's Pair, I believe the Light Men's Double will be one of the top 5 "must see" races over the next two years.