Men’s Coxed Four (BM4+) – Final

Australia, Italy and Great Britain were all given yellow cards for being late at the start. But that was all forgotten as the six final boats charged off the start line. Italy had by far been the fastest boat coming through from the heats but it was Australia in the lead at the start. The United States then picked up the pace and squeezed into the lead. Coming into the middle of the race Great Britain – much to the crowd’s delight – had pulled into second and were very, very close to the American leaders.

Then Italy did a third 500m piece. Italy took silver in this boat class last year and they were really finding their rhythm. The final sprint had come into view and Italy had taken the lead with the United States chasing hard. This left an incredibly close battle between Great Britain, Australia and Romania. Italy was now at 41 with the United States doing 38 and Great Britain at 37. Italy had won in a time of 6:04, just one second off the under-23 World Best Time.

Results: ITA, GBR, USA, ROU, AUS, FRA

Niccolo Pagani, Italy, gold
“Our start wasn’t so good and in the first thousand we were fighting for the lead. We forced it on with legs and arms. We moved through to first at 1500m. It’s my third time in Plovdiv (juniors, under 23s) and I’ve won each time.”

Charles Clarke (c), Great Britain, silver
“It was a decent start, we entered the race in small steps. The last 300m we were just about hanging on, I looked at the bowman of USA at the end and I knew we came second.”

Arne Landboe, United States, bronze
“We stuck to our race plan. We knew that in international races people go out very hard. We’ve mainly done collegiate, so our goal was to go out fast and match the pace. We achieved that, but we couldn’t quite keep up in the second half. We’re not disappointed with our result though.”