Foreign rowers impressed by Rowing Centre and Universiade Village

One of the first to begin preparing for the canoe sprint heats was the national team of New Zealand, which moved in to the Universiade Village on June 29. Such an early arrival in Kazan is explained by the New Zealanders’ need to get acclimated. Besides them, rowers from Japan, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, USA, Ireland, Malaysia, Netherlands and Ukraine have also arrived in Russia. The Russian national team is expected to be the last to arrive in Kazan, since it had conducted a full-scale training camp in Kazan’s Rowing Centre very recently.

On Wednesday, nearly all of the participating teams have engaged in training. Representatives of the Principality of Monaco were impressed by the Rowing Centre and compared Kazan to London, which hosted the 2012 Olympics. “We like your city very much. We could immediately sense the high level of the Games’ organisation,” stated the Monégasques. “Last year we have been to the Olympics in London and can say that the Rowing Centre in Kazan is on par with its counterpart in the English capital.”

Rowers of the Austrian national team did not hide their admiration of the Universiade Village and remarked the high level of preparation for the competition. “We have not seen the city yet, but we’ve been to the Universiade Village – it’s excellent, we were floored by what we’ve seen,” the Austrians recounted. “Everything is very organised and up to date. We hope the competitions themselves will be just as organised and, most importantly, fair.” The Austrian rowers refused to name the favourites of the competition, saying that many accomplished champions will be performing in the Universiade.

The Irish consider their main competitors to be the teams of the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Estonia. But so far their biggest impression is Kazan and its preparedness for staging the Games. “We can see right away that a great deal has been accomplished. We were pleasantly surprised by the delegation which met us at the airport.  The Universiade Village is amazing – it is so huge!” the Irish rowers reported.

Teams from 29 countries of the world will participate in the canoe sprint competitions.  The athletes will vie for 24 sets of medals.