By Tom Degun

Tom_Aggar_19-08-11August 19 - British Paralympic rowing star Tom Aggar (pictured) is set to compete in his biggest event ahead of London 2012 as the world's best competitors head to the 2011 World Para-Rowing Championships which place on Lake Bled in Slovenia from August 28 to September 4.


The Paralympic competition will be held simultaneously with the able-bodied World Championships in Bled with the adaptive rowers set to compete in five 1,000 metre events.

The event will offer qualifying places for London 2012 with competitors finishing in one of the top eight places in their respective boat class securing a spot to compete at Eton Dorney venue next year.

Aggar, the reigning Paralympic and world champion, will be huge favourite to retain his title in the adaptive men's arms and shoulders Single Scull (ASM1x) having never suffered a defeat.

The men's single is the largest adaptive event with a record 17 countries competing and, while Aggar is unlikely to be toppled, the 27-year-old Londoner will be wary of a threat from Ukraine's Andrii Kryvchun and New Zealand's Daniel McBride who came second and third respectively at last year's World Championships.

In the adaptive women's arms and shoulders single scull (ASW1x) race, France's world champion Nathalie Benoit (pictured) will be up against Brazil's Claudia Santos, who came second at last year's World Championships, and Belarus' Paralympic silver medallist Liudmila Vauchok.

Nathalie_Benoit_19-08-11
Meanwhile in the trunk and arms mixed double scull (TAMix2x), Ukraine's world champions Dmytro Ivanov and Iryna Kyrychenko will face France's Perle Bouge and Stephane Tardieu, who came second in last year's event, and Australia's Paralympic silver medallists John MacLean and Kathryn Ross.

Canada's world champion team of Anthony Theriault, David Blair, Victoria Nolan, Meghan Montgomery and Laura Comeau will compete in the legs, trunk and arms mixed coxed four (LTAMix4+) event.

They will be up against a strong team from Germany, which won bronze at last year's Championships, with a team of Christiane Quirn, Michael Schulz, Martin Lossau, Anke Molkenthin and Katrin Splitt.

The intellectually disabled mixed coxed four (IDMix4+), which will not be part of the Paralympic Games next year, will feature Hong Kong's world champions Liu Wang Sin, Lam King Shan, Szeto Tung Chun, Tsui Kwok Man and Chan Tsz Wai.

They will be up against teams from Germany, Italy and Russia.

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