Junior Men’s Pair (JM2-) – Final

The tail wind continued to build for the start of this race. Reigning junior World Champions, Germany sat in the middle lane next to Greece. Germany and Greece had won their respective semifinals in almost identical times and they met today to go for gold. Jan Hennecke and Marcus Elster of Germany set off at the fastest pace with Greece’s Ioannis Kalandaridis and Ninos Nikolaidis in second. These two boats broke away from the rest of the field leaving the United States and South Africa to go neck-and-neck for bronze.

Greece was now closing on Germany and in the third 500 they took the lead over Germany. Greece took their stroke rate up and broke away from Germany. South Africa handled the bumpy water better and took the bronze medal spot. Greece had recorded a new junior World Best Time. The new time: 6:32.51 – nearly two seconds faster than the former time set ten years ago by Romania.

Results:  GRE, GER, RSA, USA, ITA, AUT

B-final

New Zealand and Bulgaria had the fastest times from the semifinals of these boats. But at the start it was Mexico in the lead. Then France pushed out in front and stayed there into the final sprint. With 400m left to row the New Zealand crew of Ethan Blight and Thomas Russel pushed it up and took the lead to become seventh in the world.

Results: NZL, FRA, MEX, GBR, CAN, BUL

Ioannis Kalandaridis (b), Gold, Greece
“It was very tough today, at the start we were behind but after 500m we took over the Germans. This is great for us, it’s the first gold ever for Greece at the Junior World Championships.”

Jan Hennecke (b), Silver, Germany
“We had a good start but at the 500m the Greeks took over. We wanted to catch them at the end but they were just too fast today. These conditions were very difficult for us.” 

Sandro Torrente (b), Bronze, South Africa
“In the last 750m the USA had a canvas on us but we stayed calm and we just put in a big push to take the Bronze”