Lightweight Men's Four (LM4-) - Final

At the start Great Britain had the edge, but in good lightweight fours fashion, the margins were tiny. By the middle of the race New Zealand had pushed into first with Denmark and Great Britain the closest challengers. This order remained through the third 500m.

Then, in a show almost unprecedented in lightweight fours rowing, New Zealand moved away from the rest of the field. The lightweight four is renowned for close finishes, but New Zealand was not complying. James Hunter, Peter Taylor, James Lassche and Curtis Rapley of New Zealand were heading towards an open water lead. Denmark at 41 and Great Britain at 43 could not dent this lead.

New Zealand had started off their 2014 season with commanding style.

Results: NZL, DEN, GBR, USA, FRA1, CHN

Gold – Curtis Rapley (NZL)

There’s a lot of hard work that you have to put in throughout the year and you have to squeeze it all into six minutes. From here on, everyone else is just going to get faster. We’ll enjoy this today and get back to work tomorrow.

Silver – Jacob Barsoe (DEN)

We’re not satisfied with this performance. We applied too much power and forgot to relax. So we have to work on not getting over excited, and to get on the water and get synchronised. We need to be at the top of our game to beat the British and we weren’t today.

Bronze- Peter Chambers (GBR)

The season has gone well – the past six weeks have gone really well and we’re slowly coming together.

B-final

Poland has had moments of brilliance in the lightweight men’s four including an A-final finish at the European Rowing Championships earlier this month. They came through as the next fastest from yesterday’s repechage and showed that they were the best B-final crew today by leading from start to finish. Canada, in their first international outing for 2014, pressed hard, but was outraced by the Poles.

Results: POL, CAN, FRA2, AUT, BRA