Men’s Double Sculls (M2x) – Final

France’s Matthieu Androdias and Hugo Boucheron had the fastest time coming through from the semifinals. They raced in the final at the Rio Olympics and have been just outside of the medals so far this season. Taking off the fastest was Rio Olympic silver medallists, Mindaugas Grisknois and Saulius Ritter of Lithuania. But it was winners of World Rowing Cup III, New Zealand who got to the first 500m mark in the lead. John Storey of New Zealand raced in the quad at the Rio Olympics while his partner Chris Harris was in the Rio men’s double. Italy followed in second with Poland racing through to third. At the half way point New Zealand held a small margin over Filippo Mondelli and Luca Rambaldi of Italy.

The Italians then picked up the pace coming through the third 500 and got their nose ahead of Storey and Harris with Poland’s Miroslaw Zietarski and Mateusz Biskup right with them. New Zealand was at 43 and only just holding off Poland at 39 and Italy at 38. New Zealand had won gold.

Results: NZL, POL, ITA, LTU, NOR, FRA

John Storey (b), New Zealand, gold
“I didn’t know where I was in that last stretch, I just had my eyes closed. This is like a dream come true. It’s an insane boat class. Every crew has stepped up into this field. Throughout the race, there was no settling in to a rhythm, we just stuck to our game plan and went for it at the end.”

Mateusz Biskup (s), Poland, silver
“First part of the race was quite easy for us. But the New Zealand 500m sprint was crazy, we couldn’t stop them. We saw the other crews come up on us and we were able to hold them off. Really enjoyed my time here.”

Luca Rambaldi (s), Italy, bronze
“We tried to go away in that last stretch, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough. Overall, we are still really happy with our result.”

B-final

The finishing times in the semifinals were tight and today this B-final demonstrated this tightness as all six boats got away together with the United States taking an ever so slight lead. Then Romania got themselves into the lead as four boats went through the half way point with just a second separating them. In fourth, Great Britain’s Graeme Thomas had to jump in his nation’s men’s quad at the very last minute where he raced to a medal in the final. Thomas and partner Angus Groom then did a big push and got themselves into the lead with Switzerland chasing hard. The British and Swiss were both at 44. Thomas and Groom got to the line just a fraction ahead of Switzerland.

Results: GBR, SUI, USA, ROU, BUL, NED