The 2023 World Rowing Africa Continental Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta and African Championships were held in Tunisia from 23-26 October 2023. 12 Olympic and 3 Paralympic slots were confirmed at a highly competitive and well attended event on Lake Tunis. A total of 19 African countries participated in either one or both events.
In the men’s single sculls, the 5 boats that qualified to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games were from Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Zimbabwe, and Angola: the women’s section saw qualification secured by Algeria, South Africa, Uganda, Togo, and Morocco. The lightweight women’s double sculls place went to Tunisia while Egypt secured the slot in the men’s event.
For Olympic quota places obtained at the African Continental Qualification Regatta, National Olympic Committees (NOCs) that had not qualified a boat at the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, were able to qualify a maximum of two boats for the Games, based on highest ranking. RSA was the only NOC that had qualified a boat in Belgrade, therefore was only able to qualify a maximum of one boat. As there were some NOCs that had two crews rank higher in the M1x, LM2x, LW2x this allowed Togo and Morocco, in the women’s single sculls, to claim a spot for Paris 2024.
In the Paralympic Qualification event, the PR1 men’s and women’s single sculls were secured by Tunisia and Kenya respectively, while in the new Paralympic boat class – the PR3 mixed double sculls – the gold medal and quota place went to Egypt.
Pending confirmation from the respective NOCs and National Paralympic Committees (NPCs), all the Olympic and Paralympic athletes will be in Paris in the summer of 2024.
Selected crews received development support for accommodation and local transport either from the World Rowing Development Programme (WRDP) or from an NOC-accessed Olympic Solidarity grant. The WR Development Team provided on-site support through coaches Vincent Tassery, Christine Gosse, and Mikolas Masilionis, Meriem Boubakri and Aymen Mejri. WR Classifiers Helen Blamey and Laura Munoz Bravo were on site supporting the programme by undertaking the required classification and reviews for para-athletes.
In the overall results, Tunisia finished at the summit of the medal table with 9 gold medals and 20 overall, closely followed by Egypt with 9 gold and 19 overall and third placed Algeria with 4 gold and 17 overall.
More information and results details are available via the following World Rowing link:
https://worldrowing.com/event/2023-world-rowing-african-olympic-and-paralympic-qualification-regatta
