Under-23 Lightweight Men’s Quadruple Sculls (BLM4x) – Final

In the semifinals the time between the top four fastest boats was less than a second and a half. These crews must have known this as they sat in the starting blocks waiting for the ‘go’ button. Germany, Great Britain and Italy moved out at the start neck-and-neck. The Germans, in the outside lane, had the slowest time from the semifinals and they had taken the lead. Great Britain and Italy were neck-and-neck in second. The British then did a push in the third 500 and not only moved away from Italy, they closed on the German leaders.

Great Britain’s Coussens, Varley, Curtis and Horsburgh kept on moving. The stroke man, Horsburg was pushing his boat and upping the stroke rate. Great Britain had got there first. Germany had held off Italy to take second by just 0.04 of a second. Great Britain were the new under-23 World Champions.

Results: GBR, GER, ITA, CAN, IRL, SWE

Gavin Horsburgh (s), Great Britain, Gold
“We planned a hard first 1k, but the German’s went even harder for the first half. Hugo kept saying ‘tunnel vision’ and don’t think about the other crews. We just stayed focused on what was going on in the boat and controlled what we could control.

Jonas Felix Weller (s), Germany, Silver
“We weren’t so quick off the start in the past few races, therefore we decided to really focus on that now. Our middle thousand was our strongest so far. When we crossed the finish line I thought we had bronze, and then I saw it was silver!”

Davide Magni, Italy, Bronze
“We expected more, but we are very satisfied. I know everyone in the boat gave 110% and I am very proud of all of them.”