Women's Eight (W8+) - Final

The test race two days ago showed Romania as the fastest crew. They have been the regular winner of this boat class before Great Britain started to take the lead. Today Romania lined up again against Great Britain to go after the European Championship title. Romania was the first to show and they led over Great Britain and Russia. The British are the European Champions and they came second in the test race on Friday.

As the boats went through the middle of the race, the Netherlands moved ahead of Russia and put themselves dangerously close to overtaking Great Britain. The British, in the outside lane, must have realised that they needed to do something special, but they couldn’t. Once ahead of Great Britain, the Dutch went after Romania. But Romania remained strong despite two of their member, Oprea and Beres racing in the pair earlier in the day. Romania had taken gold, the Netherlands took silver and Russia overtook Great Britain to take bronze.

Results: ROU, NED, RUS, GBR, BLR

Adelina Bogus, Romania, gold
“The race was good. We wished to win and today was good for us. We started pretty good, but had a really great finish.”

Kirsten Wielaard (b), Netherlands, silver

“Quite a good build-up from Belgrade. Our four and pair all won medals and it was a combination of those crews. I came from the double so the preparation was quite intense. Together we all felt on top of the race. We tried to push toward the end, but we are happy with the result.

Julia Kalinovskaya (b), Russia, bronze
“This is our first race this year. We are a young team of women. We hope this is only the beginning. We are so happy to have a medal. A medal is a medal. Our opponents were very strong , but our finish in this race was very good.”