Image Credit: World Rowing
Entries: 23
As defending champions, Poland aren’t messing around. They’re sending a battle-hardened combination of Tristan Hervet and Jakub Olszewski, who raced to a fifth-place finish at the 2023 U19 World Rowing Championships in the quad. Since then, Olszewski has returned to the World and European stages, placing sixth and second respectively at the two events.
In the Australians’ absence, Ireland was the best of the rest 11 months ago. Like the Polish combination, it’s a fresh-look duo who’ll be representing the Emerald Isle. Martin O’Grady and Donagh Claffey have got big shoes to fill after last year’s double won a bronze medal, but Claffey brings some all-important U23 experience, having raced to seventh overall in the men’s quad last summer in St. Catharines. O’Grady takes the next step on his international journey and is back in the boat class he’s familiar with, having reached the A-final in the double at the 2021 U19 World Rowing Championships.
Croatia, Italy, and Lithuania rounded out the A-final at last year’s event.
Croatia has produced some outstanding scullers in recent years, many of them siblings. On this occasion, as far as I’m aware, Davor Poljancic and Ivan Talaja are not related, but what I do know is that they are a phenomenal pair of athletes. They team up once more in a double after racing to fourth place at last year’s U23 World Rowing Championships. After that race in St. Catharines, the duo continued training for the European Rowing Championships later that year, returning home with a silver medal. I’m incredibly excited to see how this combination steps on. They were 1.6 seconds off the podium, and on this occasion, I think they’d be disappointed not to make it and certainly come in as one of the favourite combinations.
Italy is fielding one of the most intriguing combinations. At bow is 19-year-old Josef Giorgio Marvucic, who, despite being a teenager, has already raced at a senior World Rowing Cup, finishing in the A-final of the men’s quad earlier this season at Varese. Marvucic also has a pair of younger vests, both at the U19 European and World Rowing Championship levels. As for his doubles partner, Marco Prati, also has senior experience in the double after racing in Varese to eighth place, to go with his fifth-place finish in this boat in St Catharines. As such, I expect to see Croatia and these Italians going head-to-head for the medals as the crews set their heading for Poznan.
Rounding out last year’s A-final are the crew from Lithuania. Domantas Riauba returns to U23 action after placing 16th in the men’s single scull last year. He’s raced for Lithuania on two other occasions in the pair and the quad at the 2023 U23 and the 2022 U19 European Rowing Championships, respectively. Riauba joins forces with Jonas Saparavicius, who also returns to U23 action after placing 11th in the men’s quad in 2024.
Finally, we turn to the British. Last year, Matt Long and Stephen Hughes raced to tenth overall, and in Poznan, Nathaniel Gauden and Jack Cadwallader will be hoping to get a British crew back into the A-final. Gauden, fresh from Cal’s third varsity eight, reunites with Brown University’s Gauden, who placed fifth in the varsity eight Grand Final at the IRA National Championship. The two of them have raced for Great Britain on two occasions and shared a boat for both of those outings. The Brits were sixth in the double at the 2023 U19 European Rowing Championships, before picking up a silver medal behind Germany at the World Rowing Championships later that year.
My Prediction:
Croatia, Great Britain, and Italy sparring for the medals – and finishing in that order.
