On Sunday September 10th, the opening day of Rowing Beach Sprint takes place, hosted at Karteros Coastal Sports Facilities (at the beachfront of Venue 1, Karteros Beach Sports Center). The program includes trials in all five categories that will take place at the 3rd Mediterranean Beach Games in Heraklion, Crete.
It’s about the races Men C1xTime Trials, Women C1xTime Trials, Men C2xTime Trials, Women C2xTime Trials and Relay Time Trials. On Saturday, the participants had the opportunity to train at Karteros beach, where the events of the program will occur. Note that the semi-finals are scheduled for Monday and the finals for Tuesday.
Beach Sprint is a type of rowing performed at the beach, incorporating a sprint in the sand and rowing in the open ocean near the shore. It is a form of coastal rowing, and similar to surf ski disciplines of ironman surf-lifesaving.
Beach Sprint races are much faster taking place straight off a beach. Rowers start by running 10-50m to their boat from a starting point on the beach, before jumping in their boat and slaloming out 250m (they row out around three buoys, slalom-style), spinning and sprinting the boat back, before finally dismounting on the beach and running to the finish.
Coastal rowing has been held since the 1st Mediterranean Beach Games in Pescara, in 2015.
Great forces in the competition are France, which has won 12 medals, of which eight gold in the two previous competitions (Pescara 2015 and Patras 2019) and Italy, with ten medals (4-0-6).
Many big names participate in Heraklion, who have won medals in major events in rowing and coastal rowing. Among the two athletes who won gold medals last week at the European Coastal Rowing Championships held in France (La Seyne sur-Mer). It is the Italian Giovanni Ficarra, who will compete in Crete in the single sculls, and the French Elodie Ravera- Scaramozzino, who is also competing in the women’s single. There will also be the Spanish Nadia Felipe Garcia, who in France took the silver in the mixed doubles. Greece participates with six athletes, three women and three men.
