Lordly Lucerne
2023 World Rowing Cup III
Words: Tom Ransley
PHOTOGRAPHY BENEDICT TUFNELL
Lucerne Regatta, an annual regatta saturated with superlatives, held on the Rotsee a.k.a. ‘The Lake of the Gods’ whose forever-fawned over lake frontage is protected for its natural beauty, is a spiritual home for generations of rowers and offers an intoxicating concoction of athleticism, competition and camaraderie atop sparking glacial waters. The perfect finale for the 2023 World Rowing Cup series.
What could possibly spoil such a picture-postcard perfect scene?
Grenades.
Well, yes. The odd overlooked, sunken grenade lingering on the lakebed since a local ammunition depot exploded in 1916 is a downer, but let’s forgive this beauty spot that singular flaw. Fortunately, the most explosive thing this year was the racing, but the fuse took time to light because this year’s scene spoiler was armed with a stopwatch: time trials.
The regatta started with a seemingly endless run of entertainment-killing, adrenaline-sapping time trials. The line-astern procession was widely panned by participants (and just about everyone else too) but its inclusion was deemed necessary by the World Rowing Council who wanted to practise contingency scenarios should they be needed at the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic qualification events or, worse yet, Paris 2024.
One grumbling athlete thought it all a bit much, they felt competitors racing at this level are already well-versed in timed pieces and side-by-side racing was the key reason for coming. It is a tough sell for those who came from afar only to be dumped into a D-Final early doors. Even Olli Zeidler, Germany’s wunderkind, almost missed qualification to the quarterfinals.
Zeidler is not a fan of the time trials, “a race format I really don’t understand”, he was beaten by heat winner Tom Mackintosh, the Kiwi Olympic M8+ champion who enjoyed a successful debut in the single after a stint in the men’s pair last season. The fastest M1x heat time was posted by Japan’s Ryuta Arakawa, on the women’s side it was Karolien Florijn (more on the flying Dutchwoman later).