May on Ada Ciganlija and Sava Lake lasted in rowing regattas, from, the most important, 1st World Rowing Cup, through Youth League, to International Regatta
1st World Rowing Cup
From the time Sava Lake started to exist, in the seventies of the last century, in rowing calendar one of the most important rowing events on Ada Ciganlija will be written – 1st World Rowing Cup. Every year the elite world rowers, before World Rowing Championships or, as this year, before Olympic Games, are participating on three Regattas of World Rowing Cups. Belgrade had the honor to organize, for the first time in history, such important competition, from the 4th till 6th May on Sava Lake.

Serbian Rowing Federation’s office, with Secretary General, Nebojsa Jevremovic, and Director of the competition, Mladen Stegic, under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Youth and Sport and City of Belgrade, answered all strict criteria and tasks demanded by World Rowing Federation (FISA).

Great number of younger and older volunteers from sport contributed the whole organization, and we should emphasize that 20 members of RC Graficar with their effort also made their contribution that participants of the World Rowing Cup feel the hospitality of Belgrade and Serbia.
With today’s champions of the world rowing, Belgrade had the opportunity to welcome many former champions, such as Martin Cross form Great Britain, winner on the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984, who traveled as BBC reporter.
Beside excellent organization, Martin said that Belgrade is fascinating, unusually cordial. Martin had heavy task to make interviews with competitors from the British team after each final race, so with 12 medals for British, his was very busy.
Competition passed in domination of Great Britain, with 4 Gold medals, and 12 medals in total. Right behind them is Germany with 3 Gold medals, and Points ranking looks like this: Great Britain 79 points, Germany 47 points, Netherland 25 points, etc.
One of the nations that has also stood out was Greece, with several crews, with National Coach, Gianni Postiglione, won 1 Gold medal, 2 Silver medals and 1 Bronze medal, and once again showed why he was chosen for the Coach of the year (2011)

From all interesting races in female and male competition, special event was race of men’s single sculls. Besides Check, Ondrej SINEKA (Gold medal) who was main attraction, British, Allen Campbell (Silver medal), big surprise and great success was Cuban rower, Angel Furnije Rodrigez who won Bronze medal.
Finish of the men’s double scull race was interesting. It could be said that Slovenian crew with 40 years old (!) Istok Cop, at stroke position, who rowed against much younger rival from Germany and Great Britain, wining the Bronze medal could make up on, for him 6th (way to go!!!), Olympic Games in London.
British eight was also interesting, and one of the members of the crew was Greg Searle (40 years) winner on the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992.
Many competitors and Team Managers, who came to Belgrade for the first time, rated with excellent grades the organization of the World Rowing Cup, and fantastic regatta course as well. Even the New Zealand crew, land with many calm rowing lakes, said that Sava Lake is one of the top three rowing destinations in world.
Looking back, we haven’t won Gold medal on this World Cup, but as good hosts and excellent organizers it is for sure deserved in expecting further good rowing events on Ada Ciganlija.

Grafos won 1 Gold, 5 Silver Medals in the Boys and Girls Under 15 and Junior category
First day of the competition, Saturday, 19th May, though sunny, with moderately strong head wind didn’t bring “fast times”, and didn’t bother following crews to win medals.
Milica Lugonja and Luna Ugrenovic won Silver Medal in Junior Women’s Double Scull with time 8.20, and 4.5 second behind the first placed RC Begej crew
In the youngest category, Girls Under 15, Tara Marinkovic and Katarina Ciric, won Silver Medal, on the distance of 1000 m, with 6 seconds behind the first placed crew (4.29)
In one of the most interesting races of the day, Boys Under 15 Single Sculls, among 8 crews, Aleksa Ivkovic gained 2nd position and Silver Medal with time 4.02, with less than 3 second behind the RC Smederevo crew.
Following RC Graficar rower, though haven’t won medals, gained solid and noticed results.
- 4th place for the Boys Under 15 Double Scull, Bogdan Belincevic and Marko Loncarevic, with time 4.17 in the competition of 8 crews
- 5th place in the competition of 21 Junior Single Sculls, Milos Scepanovic gained with the time of 8.12; in the same competition, after the bad morning qualification race, Viktor Pivac improved impression with the 2nd place in the Finals B with time 8.06
- After also bad morning race, our Lightweight Senior, Nemanja Delic, gained the 1st position and convincingly won in the Heavyweight Senior race with time 7.44
Among 15 crews who competed on the second day of competition, on 20th May, with the calm and easy wind, Gold Medal has been won by Aleksa Ivkovic and Bogdan Belincevic. Thanks to excellent rowing they won with time 3.28
Martin Mackovic (RC Palic) and Viktor Pivac (RC Graficar) rowed for the Junior Double Scull combined crew. Though they had very little trainings together, this newly formed crew, made great appearance with time 6.37 and for only 1,5 seconds lost from the very good crew from RC Curug. With this time they fulfilled time line for the appearance in Serbian Junior Rowing Team.
In the last race for the Junior Quadruple Scull on Sunday, with time 6.10 and very well performance Sreten Kovacevic, Viktor Pivac, Luka Martinovic and Milos Scepanovic won Silver medal
Here you may find complete results:
BIR-rezultati-19-i-25-maj-2012.pdf

Belgrade International Regatta was held on Saturday, 19th May, and on Sunday, 20th May, where beside domestic rowing clubs, 140 foreign rowers took participation.
According to the Program for Junior Rowing Team, written by Junior Head Coach, Dejan Guslov, Belgrade International Regatta is significant, as it is the last criterion regatta for the junior team selection for the upcoming European and World Junior rowing Championships.
Saturday, 1st day of Belgrade International Regatta
According to Junior Head Coach Program, on the 1st day of regatta, on Saturday, all candidates are obliged to participate in Single Sculls and Pairs, while the 2nd day is planned for the appearances in big boats, Double Sculls and Fours. RC Graficar rowers, Milos Scpenovic and Viktor Pivac accomplished very good results in the Single Sculls.
Recovered, Milos Scepanovic, has by entering the A finals and gaining the 5th position, showed that his form is up warding, so, with this result, he provided the place in National Team. Viktor Pivac, could have sparkled on previous regattas and win medals, but due to lack of experience he didn’t do well in the morning heats. Therefore he couldn’t make it to the A finals, but his miscarriage has been made up by taking the 2nd place in B finals, and with overall 5th best time showed the quality for Junior Rowing Team.
Sunday, second day of Belgrade International Regatta
Second racing day brought exciting races in all categories. Grafos’es Double Scull for Boys Under 15, Aleksa Ivkovic and Bogdan Belincevic, in the very end of exciting race won Gold Medal ahead of much faster crews from Croatia. They didn’t let themselves be confused at the end of the race, so with boat length of advantage they took the victory.
RC Palic (Martin Mackovic) and RC Graficar (Viktor Pivac) combined crew only word of praise could be said. They lost from the much more trained RC Curug crew with less than boat length, and according to the Program for Junior National Team, and as a first year of juniors, accomplished result 2 seconds faster than the time line in the Program for Junior National Team (6,39) for this discipline /6,37.
According to the Programm of Regatta, hour after the junior double scull race, race of quadruple sculls followed. RC Graficar crew, with Milos Scepanovic, Luka Martinovic, Sreten Kovacevic and Viktor Pivac participated in this race. Related to the time line for juniors (6.08), Grafos crew accomplished good time (6.10) with staying behind the RC Partiza crew for something more that 8 seconds.

The second day of regatta was marked by junior Viktor Pivac, perhaps not by gold medals, but by the effort and accomplishment. Together with his crew mates, in less than hour, managed to achieve tim line for double scull (6.37) and for the second junior time line in quadruple scull (6.10) lacked 2 seconds.

First round of Youth League was held on Sunday, 13th May 2012, with participation of 12 rowing clubs for categories of Boys and Girls under 15 (13 and 14 years old) and Juniors B (15 and 16).
Domestic competition that was held 7 days after 1st World Rowing Cup had interesting races, where young rowers showed that they are the future of domestic rowing. They passed this test with their effort and combativeness at windy and rainy weather.
Rowing Club Graficar, in the youngest category, Boys and Girls Under 15 in the Double Scull crew won 2 Gold Medals and gained 3rd position in overall of 12 participants of the League.
Tara Marinkovic and Katarina Ciric convincingly won the Gold Medal with excellent stroke. Although, very young, born in the year 1999, they showed that with regular training they can beat even older contesters.
Aleksa Ivkovic and Bogdan Belincevic, in the Boys Under 15 Double Scull, using a strong rhythm provided the convincing victory with time a bit more than 13 seconds on the distance of 1000m; and showed that they are the future of Grafos. In addition to possessing the talent, their dedication to the Club is providing the picture to senior club colleagues that with regular training excellent result could be achieved.

RC Graficar with two Gold Medal is the 3rd in the competition of 12 rowing clubs
The 1st Youth League has been held in the organization of the Serbian Rowing Federation and Rowing Club Graficar, on Sunday, 13th May, in Belgrade on Ada Ciganlija Regatta Course. From 12 rowing clubs 77 crews took participation in the Boys and Girls under 15 and Juniors B category in the 11 disciplines on the distance of 1000 m. Cold and for moment rainy weather, haven’t disturbed rowers to boldly stage very interesting and in some races very uncertain finals. RC Palic and RC Crvena Zvezda won the most Gold Medals (3 medals each), followed by RC Graficar (2 Gold Medals) and finally RC Danubius, RC Galeb and RC Smederevo with Gold Medals for their crews.
Aside the good organization, Grafos were very happy for the Double Sculls both for the Boys and Girls Under 15 races.
- Aleksa Ivkovic and Bogdan Belincevic convincingly triumphed with time 3.37 in front of the crews of RC Smederevo (3.46) and RC Partizan (3.50)
- Young Girls Under 15, Tara Marinkovic and Katarina Ciric, rowed great and with time 4.14 beat the RC Palic crew (4.27):

Here you may find complete results of the 1st Youth League
Omladinska-liga-13-maj-2012-Rezultati.xls
Next regatta for the RC Graficar rowers is the following weekend, on the 19th and 20th May on Ada Ciganlija, where Belgrade International Regatta will be held.

On Saturday and Sunday Grafos, won Gold, two Silver and Bronze Medals on the international competition
Rowing Club Graficar, on Sunday, 28th April, and Sunday, 29th April 2012, participated on 39th International Regatta in Szeged. On the first day of competition, junior rowers, Milica Lugonja and Luna Ugrenovic, with very good rowing, won Silver Medal, right behind the Hungarian crew and in front of the RC Begej crew. This medal was the announcement for tomorrow’s appearance where Grafos took four more medals. Windy weather that lasted all through the first day of the competition, continued on Sunday with even greater intensity, so in the afternoon’s finals there were 90 minutes delays, because the wind and waves interfered with the races.
However, regatta continued, and waves in the Single Sculls race haven’t disturbed Viktor Pivac to win Silver Medal among 22 crews.
Milica and Luna, in the Junior Women’s Double Scull, won Bronze Medal on the second racing day and made accomplishment of the day, because they raced in the most windy lane number 6, where, during this afternoon, there were very few rowers who rowed in this lane and won medal.
Peak for the Club rowers followed at the end of the races in the Junior Men’s Quadruple Scull race. Sreten Kovacevic, Luka Martinovic, Velibor Ciric and Marko Savic rowed great and convincingly beat the Hungarian crew, and won Gold Medal.

RC Graficar starts the rowing season with participation on great International Regatta „Croatia Open“ in Zagreb on 14th and 15th April 2012.

416 crews made entries for two days of the competition on the Regatta Venue Jarun, while 357 crews from eight countries announced the start on Sunday.

Summary entries for both days, please click here:
Entries_summCRO_14.4.2012.pdf
Entries_summCRO_15.4.2012.pdf

„Grafos“ are coming to the morning qualifications with 7 crews in total: Boys U 15 (Aleksa Ivkovic in Single Scull), Junior Women (Milica Lugonja in Single Scull), Junior Men (3 Single Sculls and 1 Double Scull) and Lightweight Senior Men (Nemanja Delic).

 
Milica Lugonja i Luna Ugrenović, Nemanja Delić

On Sunday morning RC Graficar will appear with 2 club crews and 4 combinated crews in junior and senior competition.

RC Graficar entries, please click here: Prijava_Cro_Open_Graf_2012.doc

Rowers of the RC Graficar on first day of competition on big International Regatta in Zagreb competed in single sculls while on Sunday participated in combined of crews in double sculls and quadruple sculls.

On Saturday, 14th April, first day of competition, Milica Lugonja, rowed in single scull, started good in qualifications by gaining the first position, while in further course of the race due to the lack of good rhytm she started to loose the wining postition, so Milica just rowed across the course.

We had three representatives in junior single scull in the competion of 69 competitors.

Milos Scepanovic, after a difficult start, with time 7.51 gained 44th position.

Stefan Tesic finished with time 8.06 gaining the 59th time.

Viktor Pivac fell behind at the start, and after the disturbed rhytm caused by bad rowing, made big failure from at least 10 seconds behind the competition, and with time 7.46 gained 39th position.

In the competition of lightweigth seniors, Nemanja Delic, as a senior B, won 2nd place and placement in the finals B, right behind the experienced senior A ftom the Austrian Rowing Team.

Nemanja gained 5th position in the afternoons Finals B, that is 11th place out of 34 single sculls, in the competition of lightweight seniors A, making this result a solid one.

In the competion of boys under 15 single sculls on the distance of 1000m, Aleksa Ivkovic was very close to wining the Gold medal, if he hadn’t stuck to buoys 300m before the end of the race and stoped the boat this way. In spite of this misfortune, Aleksa continued and succeed in wining the Silver medal with time 4.02,12, by remaining behind the winner from the RC Glagoljas for 3,55 seconds.

On Saturday, in the competition of junior double sculls, after the qualifications and wining the 2nd postition and placement in finals A, Lazar Brankovic and Uros Aleksandric won Silver medal with time 7.11,56, by remaining the 7,19 seconds behind the Turkish Rowing Crew.

On second day of competition, on Sunday, 15th April, in the morning qualification, RC Graficar, out of 6 crews, made plascements in one finals A, 2 crews in finals B and 2 crews in finals C. In the junior doubls sculls qualifications, two combinated and one club crews appeared. Stefan Tesic with rowers from RC Argo Izola gained 3rd position and placement to the finals C, where they took 5th place.

Milos Scepanovic with Bosko Suvacarov (from RC Galeb), gained 5th position in qualifications and ended the competition.

Lazar Brankovic and Viktor Pivac had a good start, and in the middle section with poor strokes lost positions for finals A or B. They won 3rd place for finals C. The afternoon final races showed that it was no accident they fall behind the winner of their heat, Estonian crew, who won Gold medal in finals A.

In junior women double sculls, Milica Lugonja and Luna Ugrenovic, started good, and after the first half of the race started to loose the chance for finals A. Luna Ugrenovic’s leg injuriy of hasn’t healed, so that’s the reason the crew missed racing in finals B.

In lightweight men’s double scull, Nemanja Delic and Milos Veres (RC Galeb), as seniors B, kept distance with far more experinced Slovenian, Hungarian and Croatian rowers till third section, and finaly had to satisfy with placement in finals B. They lost in the afternoons finals B from the Slovenian crews, by gaining the 2nd position, and 8th in total, in front of the Turskih crew and RC Mladost crew.

Members of RC Graficar, Lazar Brankovic, Uros Aleksandric and Viktor Pivac, in combinated qudruple scull with Uros Marinkovic from the RC Crvena Zvezda, won Bronze medal right behind the crews of RC Partizan and RC Timavo.

You may find complete results on the www.croatiaopen.vsz.hr