Men’s Pair (BM2-) – Final

France’s Thibaud and Guillaume Turland set a new under-23 World Best Time earlier in the week. But the fastest qualifying time from the semifinals had gone to Mihaita-Vasile Tiganescu and Cosmin Pascari of Romania. There was also the defending under-23 World Champions, Viktor Pivac and Martin Mackovic of Serbia. Romania was the first to show and they got to the first 500m mark in the lead. They continued to make gains holding an incredible 39 stroke rate pace. This left the rest of the field to form a line that was separated by just one second.

Serbia then managed to break away from the pack going through the middle of the race with France and the United States chasing hard. Tiganescu and Pascari was still at 39 strokes per minute and they had an open water lead. The United States crew of Richards and Corrigan then got their nose ahead of France, pushing them out of a medal spot. The sprint to the line was on. Romania went to 41, the US went to 40, Romania went to 47, France was at 38 with Serbia at 46. Wow. Romania took gold. A photo finish called France in second with Serbia beating the United States by just 0.02 of a second.

Results: ROM, FRA, SRB, USA, RSA, GBR

Cosmin Pascari (s), Romania, gold
“The race was very hard, but the boat felt very speedy. It was a crazy finish in the last 500m. We were dead at the end. We will go to Sarasota.”

Thibaud Turlan (b), France, silver
“The race was very tough but we just kept pushing on. The finish was very hard with the Americans, we were surprised by them. We’ll possibly be going to the European under 23s.”

Viktor Pivac (b), Serbia, bronze
“We expected to do better today, we had a good start, but our second 500m was a bit poor. It is really tough with the heat, but I am still happy. We’ve been doing the under 23s for four years and we’ve won a medal every time.”

B-final

Austria only just missed out on making the a-final and they must have been the favourites to win today. But it was the Netherlands who had the lead at the start with Austria back in third. Fast starters, Turkey was in second. Then Austria’ Maximillian Kohlmayr and Florian Walk moved past Turkey and tried to close on Jochem Kostelijk and Sander de Graaf of the Netherlands. These two countries came into the final sprint together as Italy charged through in a final sprint. Kostelijk and de Graaf had the better pace at a 37 stroke rate. Italy, at 42, took third with Austria holding on to second.

Results: NED, AUT, ITA, GER, TUR, MDA