Lightweight Men’s Single Sculls (LM1x) – Final

Peter Galambos of Hungary blasted out at the start and had the lead at 250m. These six boats had finished with a spread of less than three seconds when they came through from the semifinals and there was little doubt that this race would be tight. Ireland’s Olympic medallist, Paul O’Donovan came out slowly at the back of the field. Then O’Donovan, who took Olympic silver in the lightweight double sculls, did a huge push and got into second. Rajko Hrvat of Slovenia had also done a push and got ahead of Galambos.

The stroke rates remained high and O’Donovan had got the better of Hrvat using a very high stroke rate. Once in front O’Donovan moved clean away from the field. What a sprint. This left Hrvat to try and hold off the ending challenge by Lukas Babac of Slovakia. O’Donovan continued to sprint. “I was just banging up and down out there,” said O’Donovan in his World Rowing Facebook live interview. The ‘banging’ worked.  Full credit to Galambos. His finishing sprint had earned him silver and Babac had hung on to bronze.

Results: IRL, HUN, SVK, SLO, GER, SRB

B-final

A 34 stroke rate closing sprint brought Yuki Ikeda of Japan up with the leaders when he pulled out a great closing sprint. But it was Jose Gomez-Feria of Spain, who had gotten into the lead through the third 500, that was able to get ahead of Ikeda and win the race by just 0.24 of a second. Italy, who had led for the first half of the race, finished third.

Results: ESP, JPN, ITA, USA, CRO, SUI

Paul O’Donovan, Gold, Ireland
“The first stroke was bad, but then the second one was good so I went from there. At the 500m left I remembered I told my friends when I was in Rio that I would win here by open water, so I thought I should probably keep my promise. Then at 200m to go I guess I started smiling a little.”

Peter Galambos, Silver, Hungary
“My plan was to travel with the field and pull a good sprint in the end today. I just really wanted a medal and I’m very happy I got one.”

Lukas Babac, Bronze, Slovakia
“I really enjoy racing in these conditions, my favourite race was the heat when it was really rough out there. I started a little too slow so in the last stretch I just really had to push for a medal.”