The World Rowing Development Programme around the World Rowing U23 Championships successfully concluded on Sunday, 23rd July in a sunny and warm welcoming Plovdiv.
With the valuable support of the Organizing Committee of the World Rowing U23 Championships, and through the Development Programme and the solidarity approach to encourage and support participation at key World Rowing events and championships, 14 World Rowing Member Federations from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas were able to take part in the championships.
The development programme included a total of 61 athletes and coaches/team managers from the following countries: Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Finland, Latvia, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Serbia, Thailand, Tunisia and, Uruguay.
Development support consisted of free full-board accommodation, local transportation, equipment and coaching support.
Boats were supplied by World Rowing Development Programme partner, Filippi; whereas, World Rowing Coaches Ibtissem Trimech, Mikolas Masilionis and Sahbi Khardani, provided technical support to all participating teams within the development programme, including help with rigging, technique and support during training and racing days as required by the teams. They were joined by coach Diana Ivanova, a local coach from Bulgaria, as part of the legacy programme to integrate and train local coaches by including them in the Development Programme. This helps us grow the network of well-educated and trained coaches all around the world, who can give back to their local communities, while also supporting the World Rowing Development Programme when needed.
The World Rowing Umpiring Commission delivered a rules seminar for the development programme participants, as some of the young athletes are taking part for the first time in an international level event, to familiarize them with the rules and regulations governing the training and racing in World championships, including traffic rules during training days and race days, regulations for teams uniforms, branding on teams uniform and boats, among other rules related topics.
A presentation about the testing performance applications used by World Rowing development programme to track, monitor and evaluate athletes performance level was also delivered by Ibtissem Trimech.
A crew from Pakistan took part in the event, bringing back Pakistan to international rowing events. While Uruguay managed to qualify a crew for the final A in BM2x, ranking 4th.
The event concluded with a happy smile from all the participants included in the development programme, who confirmed that the support they receive through the World Rowing development programme is invaluable for their rowing activities and exposure of their athletes to international racing conditions.
