The world's strongest rowing nations, including crews from Australia, Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, will be racing for the overall Title and the Rowing World Cup. It will be the last competitive test for selection of crews before the 1997 FISA World Rowing Championships set for the first week of September on Lake Aiguebelette near Chambery, France.
"The entry for the finals in this first year of the Rowing World Cup is fantastic and underlines the global support of the national federations and the rowers for this new competition series," said Matt Smith, Executive Director of FISA. "We are also delighted with the success of the new event with the viewing public and the media. The number of viewers on television are near to record levels for rowing. In Germany, 2.3 million viewers watched the Munich World Cup regatta on ARD and 3.3 million Britons watched the Paris regatta on BBC. These are close to the best-ever ratings for the World Championships."
In Lucerne, Swiss Television is providing the host broadcast and will televise the Finals on Sunday afternoon. Live coverage and recorded highlights (as of this date) will be shown on the following stations:
EUROPE: Swiss 4 (Switzerland), BBC TV (Great Britain), ARD/ZDF (Germany), NOS (The Netherlands), TVE (Spain), HRT (Croatia), RTVSLO (Slovenia), RAI (Italy), and FT2/3 (France), reaching over 117 million homes on free terrestrial television and on Eurosport which reaches over 66 million homes in Europe on cable.
INTERNATIONAL: Astra Sport (South Africa), ART (Middle East), Network Seven (Australia), Star Sports (Pan Asia), TV12 (Singapore), CCTV (China), JSB (Japan), SKY (New Zealand), Torneos (South America), and CBC (Canada) reaching over 164 million homes.
The Rowing World Cup is an annual international team competition, comprising three regattas staged at three week intervals and featuring the 14 Olympic boat classes. The 1997 Rowing World Cup regattas included stages in Munich, Germany and Paris, France and now conclude in Lucerne, Switzerland.
In each of the 14 events, points are awarded to the highest placing boat from each nation. The nation with the most points overall at each regatta is awarded a trophy as the winning nation for that regatta.
After the Lucerne Rowing World Cup regatta, the nation with the most points in each boat class will be declared the Rowing World Cup Champion in that boat class. The nation with the most points overall from the 14 classes will be declared the winner of the 1997 Rowing World Cup.
Results will be faxed or are available after each race on the internet