Lake Garda Bisse Championship Starts in Salò With New Race Regulations
Boats in the water, tomorrow at night in Salò, for the start of the 34th edition of the Lake Garda Bisse Championship. A tournament, the one for awarding the Flag of Lake 2001, with substantial novelties compared to previous years.
It begins 15 days earlier while only eight trials will be held, culminating with the final in mid-August. The regulations also change: each individual race will have a winner, which, according to the organizers, offers greater spectacle. The registered crews for the race are 17, representing 12 rowing clubs of the venetian-style rowing, i.e., standing.
The teams and involved locations
In Bardolino, Cassone, Clusane d’Iseo, Garda, Gardone, Gargnano, Lazise, Peschiera, Portese, Salò, and Toscolano-Maderno, Sirmione has been added, returning to the races after two years of absence. Five clubs have two boats each: Centro nautico di Bardolino (Bardolino and Preonda), Clusane (Clusanina and Sebina); associazione La Rocca di Garda (Garda and Regina Adelaide); associazione sportiva Olimpia di Lazise (Lacisium and Birba), and gruppo Bisse di Toscolano Maderno (Benacense and S. Ercolano).
The other seven include: bissa Torricella (Cassone), Foscarina (Gardone), Villanella (Gargnano), Ichtya (Peschiera), Portesina (Portese), Serenissima (Salò), and Ca Da Mosto (Sirmione).
The calendar and the final phase
As mentioned, there are eight races, with the rowing caravan moving, after the opening trial, to Gardone on June 23 and to Garda on June 30. Three appointments in July: Iseo on the 7th, Gargnano on the 14th, and Lazise on the 21st.
In August, the 4th in Cassone and the final on the 11th in Bardolino. Each event will feature three qualification heats, with the top two from each advancing to the final to compete for the evening’s winner title.
Throughout the race, there will be seven winners, one for each evening final, over a shortened course compared to the qualification heats. The Flag of Lake will be awarded in the concluding race in Bardolino: the top six crews, having accumulated the highest total points during the tournament, will compete for it.
New features and innovations
Another novelty is the draw of crews for each race, both for the heats and for the lanes in the water. This is to prevent the formation, after the initial trials, of an elite racing group that could dominate the tournament.
The innovations have been proposed by the athletes, who also preferred an early closure of the tournament so that they can go on holiday with their families in mid-August. The goal, as emphasized by the League president Franco Poli, is to energize and enhance an activity that requires significant sacrifices from the athletes.
At the same time, there is an intention to «strengthen the principles of the organization», especially since there have been disagreements that have threatened the very survival of a tournament that unites the entire Garda. “A patrimony”, Poli underlined, guest of the Garda Community which provides organizational, administrative, and financial support, coming from the cultural tradition of our territory.
