Tiraspol, May, 14. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. The first stage of the World Cup in rowing was held in Bulgarian Plovdiv. It opened the international season in this kind of rowing. There will be 3 stages in total. In Bulgaria, more than 300 athletes from 24 countries, including from Moldova, were on track. The Moldavian national team consisted of two crews (quadruple scull and pair-oar boat) and 4 single boats, including lightweights.
The men's quadruple sculls crew won silver medals. The first to finish were Polish athletes. Two boats were fighting for the subsequent prizes for the duration of the whole distance.
Pridnestrovian rowers were half a second ahead of the crew from Romania. The quadruple scull consisted of Kirill Vysotsky-Shestakov (stroke-oarsman), Alexander Bulat, Ivan Korshunov and Alexander Mashnik. They were trained by the coaches of the Tiraspol and Bendery schools of rowing: Tatiana and Boris Derevenko, Fyodor Derevianko and Valery Barabash.
The Pridnestrovian lightweight pair-oar boat (Nikita Kachkin - Dmitry Zinchenko), due to the lack of a sufficient number of participants in this class, had to compete in double contests of normal weight. There was a very deep field in this class.
“The first 500 meters pair-oar boat went on an equal footing with other crews, among which there were winners of the world and the Olympic Games. In their class, the athletes could count on at least getting into the final. I note that our crews of two and four were the youngest at the World Cup. On May 9, our delegation visited the memorial in Plovdiv, laying flowers on the monument to the Russian soldier Alesha,” Tatyana Derevenko, coach of the Bendery school of rowing said.
According to the results of the World Cup in the medal standings, the Chinese won for the first time in history. Subsequent places were taken by the Dutch and the Poles athletes.
Today, Pridnestrovian rowers go to Germany for the Junior World Championships. The men's quadruple scull with a helmsman and two single scullers will take part in these competitions. For our rowers, this is a debut in the European arena.
