Men’s Eight (BM8+) – Final

The United States and the Netherlands took a direct path to this final from the heats and they met for the first time today. The US recorded the fastest time. Today the Dutch got away very slowly with the US having the best speed at the start. This was despite Romania holding a 52 stroke rate for a full 200m. The US went through the second 500m at 41 with Romania in second and Great Britain in third. Germany was very much on the pace in fourth. The reigning under-23 champions, the Netherlands remained at the back of the field. Romania then went to 43 to try and get into first. The US held them off with Great Britain holding on to the Romanians.

The final sprint was now on. Romania went to 44 with Great Britain fighting back on a similar stroke rate. The US were at 40 and holding the entire field off. At the line the US had recorded a new under-23 World Best Time. Their time of 5:22.48 was over two seconds faster than the previous record set last year by the Netherlands. The results for second took a while to come in. Great Britain had grabbed silver from Romania by a one thousandth of a second.

Results: USA, GBR, ROU, GER, CAN, NED

Rielly Milne (c), United States of America, gold
“The start was a little shaky and I had to make a few corrections but by 500m we really started to gain momentum and we continued to pick up the pace. We all knew that we had good speed coming from Lucerne and it’s fantastic to come here and get a world best time.”

France was the quickest qualifiers of these crews but it was Italy that had the lead today. Italy got out quickly at the start and maintained their lead over France and Ukraine right through to the end of the race.

Results: ITA, FRA, UKR, RUS, POL