Robbie Manson, the openly gay rower from rowing-crazy New Zealand, qualified for his nation’s spot in the single sculls at the world rowing championships with a win this weekend at a world cup race.
With his win at the event in Lucerne, Switzerland, Manson, 28, continued his recent dominance heading into the September world rowing finals in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
”It’d be good to do what I didn’t manage to do last year. Obviously it’ll be tough — [third-place finisher Ondrej] Synek always gets up at the world champs so you can’t take too much from what he did today,” Manson said.
“The start wasn’t quite as good as I wanted it to be but then I managed to just push up and then step on it in the second thousand. I built up a bit of a lead and it ended up being quite comfortable in the end and so I eased off in the last 100 to 150 meters.”
There are three world cup rowing events and Manson has won the single sculls at the last two — Lucerne and in June in Linz, Austria.
Manson was on a similar roll in 2017 heading into the world championships in Florida, but an injury slowed him down and he finished fifth in the single sculls final.
