Lightweight Men’s Four (LM4-) – Final

In the preliminary race Italy won by a handy margin. But it is a new day and with World Champion titles to be had, there was no telling what would happen today. This boat class has been an Olympic boat class up until 2016, but with gender equality, the women’s four has taken its place at the Olympics. The World Championship event is now the pinnacle event of the lightweight four. Italy won at World Rowing Cup III with Russia taking second. At the start Italy had the fastest pace holding 47 strokes per minute then ‘settled’ to 42 to get to the first 500m mark in the lead. China was in second with Germany right on the pace in third with a rather sluggish Russia in fourth.

As China tried to catch Italy, the Italians kept their stroke rate at 40. But there was very little in it with Germany holding on and in the bronze medal spot. Both Italy and China were 39 coming into the final sprint. It was doing better things for Italy who now started to wind and take a bit of a margin over China. Russia then came up to attack Germany’s third place spot. At 41 Russia was in a line with Germany and a fading China. Italy gold, Russia silver, Germany bronze.

Results: ITA, RUS, GER, CHN, HUN, USA

Piero Sfiligoi (s), Italy, gold
“I had a really good race, especially with the very tough competition from Russia, Germany and China. At the end of the race, the only thing we could think was stay up high and go.”

Aleksey Vikulin (s), Russia, silver
“That was very difficult. We thought we might just have been able to win, we gave it everything at the end, but Italy was better than us today.”

Patrik Stoecker (b), Germany, bronze
“The last 500m was so painful, I had no idea after we crossed the finish line in what place we ended. For us this is the perfect end to our season.”