Men’s Pair (M2-) – Finals

A-final

Mackovic and Vasic took the lead at the start and held it over Spain and Croatia through the first half of the race. This was unexpected, as usually the Sinkovic’s take the lead a lot sooner. But they were just two seconds down on Serbia at the half way point. Mackovic and Vasic continued to hold on as Croatia came up to challenge Jamie Canelejo Pazos and Javier Garcia Ordonez of Spain. In the final sprint Mackovic and Vasic went for the sprint and despite the Sinkovic’s pushing hard, the new duo for 2019, Mackovic and Vasic held them off. The first upset of the day.

Results: SRB1, CRO, ESP, SRB3, BLR, CUB

Martin Mackovic (b), Serbia, Gold
“Pretty exciting race for us! It’s actually our event together so we are really pleased with our result! It was my goal to rowing with Milos.”

Valent Sinkovic (s), Croatia, Silver
“We knew after the heats that Serbia were fast and were going be hard to beat, but we thought we could still win today. We planned to get the Serbs in the first 500 meters, and then keep it through the thousand, but they were faster. Congratulations to the Serbians, that was a really impressive race.”

Jaime Canalejo Pazos (b), Spain, Bronze
“It was a very good row with a very easy and efficient rowing style. In the first half of the race we were very close to Serbia and in the last 500 meters were more difficult and that’s when the Sinkovic brothers overtook us. We are very happy with the result as we didn’t have much time to prepare, so we’ll put more focus and training time on the European Rowing Championships. We will next race at the Europeans and then hopefully qualify for the World Rowing Championships.”

Re-watch the race here

China’s Xunman Cheng and Pengpeng Cai had to shake off Poland 1 to win this b-final. Poland held on to China through the first half of the race, but did not have the juice to hold on in the second half. Cheng and Cai remained in the lead with an ever-growing margin at the finish.

Results: CHN, POL1, HUN2, MDA