The Parmigiani Spirit Award will go to a student - either male or female, and regardless of their performance level - who has achieved or enabled exceptional successes in different areas of their life.

That might entail business, education, sports or charity, as long as the rower has displayed "exemplary life-values."

The selection process will be opened for on-line recommendations on www.worldrowing.com, followed by an evaluation by an expert panel to select the winner.

The winning university rower will be awarded a Parmigiani Fleurier timepiece and that rower's club will be presented with a new eight boat to enable the club to introduce more students to the sport of rowing.

"We are very proud to have Parmigiani Fleurier as a partner," said Denis Oswald, President of the international Rowing Federation (FISA). "The sport of rowing is a sport in which the athletes must be precise and perfectly coordinated in order to achieve elegance in their technique.

"We are very pleased that Parmigiani Fleurier have recognised that their clients value these same qualities, and that the sport of rowing offers a means to communicate these shared values in a very credible way."

Jean-Marc Jacot, chief executive of Parmigiani Fleurier SA, added: "We are very proud to be associated with such a display of exemplary life values; academic and physical perseverance, precision, teamwork and fair play, to name a few."

The 2012 City Sprints regatta will showcase Olympic and university rowers in the men's and women's single sculls, the men's quadruple sculls and the lightweight men's four as well as in the men's and women's eights over a distance of 450m.

The race will be held on the Limmat River, which flows out of Lake Zurich, between the bridges "Quaibrücke" and "Rathausbrücke".

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