RowingRelated

While we're gearing up for the World Rowing Championships in Chungju, the World Rowing Coastal Championships are in full swing in Helsingborg, Sweden, and there are a number of familiar faces in action representing the Greek Rowing Federation. In the first of the medal rounds, the dynamic duo of 2008 and 2012 Olympians Apostolos and Nikolaos Gkountoulas (shown training in Helsingborg in the above video) have taken a silver medal racing in the men's double, while teammate (winner of the prestigious RoRy for 2011 Female Athlete of the Year , and 2012 bronze medalist in the LW2x) Alexandra Tsiavou qualified directly for the final of the CW1x after placing fourth in her heat yesterday. (The video below shows her in the final strokes of her heat before the sprint up the beach to the finish.) But Tsiavou didn't stop there—she backed up her solid result in the heat with a gold medal in today's final , ahead of France's Stephanie Chantry , and Oisin Forde of Sp...

The above race video shows Alexandra Tsiavou (stroke) and her partner in the lightweight women's double, Christina Giazitzidou (bow), making yet another podium appearance in the 2012 season – this time racing to a silver medal at the European Championships in Varese, Italy. The combination has been the most successful women's lightweight crew over the past several seasons, consistently placing among the medals, but no individual lightweight athlete has been as successful as Alexandra Tsiavou (our RoRy winner for Female Athlete at the Elite Level in 2011). In fact, to find the last time that Tsiavou entered an international race without coming away with a medal, you have to go back to the final of the lightweight women's double in Beijing , when Tsiavou (just 23 years of age at the time) and then partner Chrisi Biskitzi placed sixth overall. Since then, Tsiavou has been on an absolute tear. After winning the world championship title for the second time in three years ...