Less than two weeks to go now from the Final Olympic/Paralympic Qualifier (FOPQR) and World Cup II in Lucerne, here is a quick, early May round-up of Olympic news and notes as we hit just under 80 days to go before the Games in Paris.

Entries for the FOPQR closed on Monday, and are posted here. The updated list of which nations have qualified so far is available on the Resources page of row2k's Olympic coverage.

The last winnable bids for the 2024 Games will go to the top two finishers in the 14 Olympic boat classes at the FOPQR, and to a third single sculler for both the men and women due to the reallocation of the host county quota places. (That third sculler will need to be from a nation that has not otherwise qualified any boats for Paris). In the Paralympic events, the top two in the PR2 Mix 2x and PR3 Mix 4+ will qualify, and only the winner in the PR1 singles and PR3 Mix 2x will qualify.

To catch up on the US squad, you can read about the US crews headed to the Qualifier in our report on the USA's Olympic Trials. Those athletes will be looking to join the camp selected crews and the pre-qualified Trials winners in Paris.

Ntouskos Leads Off With Torch

The honor of leading out the 2024 Torch Relay went to a rower: Stefanos Ntouskos. Greece's M1x champion from Tokyo 202One was the first athlete to take up the flame after it was lit.

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A post shared by Stefanos Ntouskos (@stefanos_ntouskos)

Ntouskos followed up his relay leg with another silver at Euros, taking second again behind the reigning World Champ from Germany Olli Zeidler. After taking fourth at the Belgrade Worlds, and sixth in Racice, Ntouskos looks to be rounding into form for his bid to defend his Olympic title.

No way, Norway?

Norway's women's scullers continued to notch some historic firsts in their run-up to Paris. After Inger Kavlie--a former Cal Bear--won Norway's first-ever W1x medal at World Cup I, she hopped into the NOR W2x for the European Championships.

The Norwegian double was coming off a historic silver of its own in Varese, and the new combination with Kalvie and Thea Helseth went one better in Szeged. They took gold ahead of both Lithuania and the defending World and Olympic champs from Romania, winning Norway's first European championship in a women's Olympic class boat.

The Norwegian women have picked a pretty good time to start winning medals, and one of any color at the Olympics would be a first for the nation; all of Norway's 14 Olympic medals have been won by men.

Check-in With the Romanians

The European Championships also offered the first look at the Romanian women, who made six of the seven A Finals and won five medals in Belgrade. At Euros, they snapped up three women's golds, a silver, and then that surprising bronze for the usually unbeatable W2x of Simona Radis and Ancuta Bodnar.

Radis did stroke the Women's eight to Euro gold, and doing both the eight and double in Paris was something she tipped to row2k during an interview with row2k in Belgrade last year, saying, "for sure you will see me in the eight at the Olympic Games." She doubled up to win gold in both during the 2022 World Championships, filling into the eight on short notice.

Radis stroking the ROU W8+ to gold in 2022

Unless the result in the double changes the calculus, the entries at Euros seem to suggest that Radis is still on board to try and help Romania's W8 win its third gold in as many years in Paris. Romania's last Olympic gold in the W8 came back in Athens, twenty years ago, before the US Women started their winning streak in the eight.

Deutschland Achter Revival?

With word that German strokeman Hannes Ocik has returned to the crew, there is a good chance the Deutschland Achter could be back in the medals mix for Paris. Ocik stroked the GER M8+ to two Olympic silvers and three World Championships between 2016 and 2021.

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A post shared by Hannes Ocik (@hannes_ocik)

Ocik's return, along with fellow Tokyo silver medallist Laurits Follert, who also comes back to the crew after two years away from Worlds, could end a quadrennial of relative turmoil for the German Men's eight. There are now four of the Tokyo medalists in the crew, including Torben Johannesen and Olaf Roggensack, who came back to the crew in 2023.

The Deutschland Achter failed to make the A Final altogether in 2022 and then took fifth just ahead of the USA in 2023. So far this season, the Germans have raced to silver behind the British at Euros and picked up a bronze at World Cup I when the Dutch entered as well. In both cases, the Germans beat the Romanians who bested them the past two seasons, as well as the Italian eight that is headed to the FOPQR to race the USA and Canada for the final spots in Paris.

More Continental Bids Booked

The Asia/Oceania and European Qualification Regattas added another 24 Olympic and 5 Paralympic qualifiers to the list for Paris in April. Ahead of the FOPQR, a total of 57 nations have qualified for the Olympics so far, along with 24 nations for the Paralympics.

At the Asia/Oceania Regatta, Tokyo silver medalist Anna Prakatan took first place to earn a trip to her second Olympics. Prakatan, who now races for Uzbekistan, finished in the C Final at the 2023 Worlds.

Prakatan (UZB) racing in Belgrade last year

The European Qualifier saw Bulgarian sculler Kristian Vasilev finally earn his Paris bid, some seven months after this near-crab in the last strokes of the Belgrade B Final cost him a qualification spot. He took second in the Euro Qualifier, with Nikolaj Pimenov, who now races for Serbia, winning the first place bid and Belgium's Tim Brys taking the third and final spot after finishing first in the C Final at the 2023 Worlds.

The Ukrainian Light Men's Double also scored an upset to qualify: winning ahead of Belgium to take one of the two places, and sending Poland to the Final Qualifier. The Ukrainians did not make the C Final in Belgrade, while the Poles and Belgians were the top Worlds finishers from Europe racing to qualify.

The UKR LM2x in Belgrade

Lobnig Update

In our last round-up, we noted that Austria's Magdalena Lobnig had announced a major injury, but it looks like better news from the Tokyo medalist in the W1x this month:

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A post shared by Magdalena Lobnig | OLY (@magdalenalobnig)

Lobnig is already qualified in the single for the Paris.

Podium Proposal

In Belgrade, we saw a wedding proposal on the return float, but when you are Ukrainian PR3 athlete Stanislav Samoliuk and your soon-to-be fiancé is your mixed doubles partner, Dariia Kotyk, you can do that one better.

Samoliuk popped the question right on the podium at the European Championship:

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A post shared by World Rowing (@worldrowingofficial)

Lucerne Looms

The next, and final, step for assembling the Paris 2024 field will be Lucerne's "Regatta of Death." Racing at the FOPQR starts on May 19th and entries are available here on the World Rowing site.

World Cup II will follow later that same week, and feature the first international racing of the season for the US team.

You can follow row2k's complete Olympic coverage throughout the build-up the Paris Olympics and Paralympics.