Women’s Four (W4-) – Finals

A-Final 

Will these be the crews that we see next year at the Olympic Games? All crews got away cleanly with Canada 1 producing the fastest opening pace. Then winner’s of World Rowing Cup II, Denmark who took the early lead. They were rating 45 with New Zealand at 49. As the crews approached the first 500m mark Australia began to push away and they got to the timing point just ahead of Denmark. Australia was third at World Rowing Cup II and it looked like they were hoping for gold today.

Australia moved away to a clear water lead with Denmark desperately trying to hold on. This left Canada and Romania fighting for the bronze medal spot. Both Australia and Denmark were at a 35 stroke rate with Denmark trying to close the gap. The sprint for the line was on. Australia looked confident as they held their lead with Denmark not looking like a gold was on the cards for them. Romania had now got ahead of Canada and were going after Denmark. Romania went to 44 with Denmark and Australia at 38-39. Australia had won. Denmark had held off Romania.

Results: AUS1, DEN, ROU, CAN1, NED1, NZL  

Lucy Stephan (s), Australia, Gold
“It was a good race! We’ve been focusing a lot on our start so we made sure to stay in the boat and managed to hold off the Danish crew. From now we’ll just be working on getting faster.”

Frida Sanggaard Nielsen, Denmark, Silver
“We expected a really long race today because of the wind. We thought it would be hard and it was but we think that the race went really well. We followed our race plan and it’s really great that we won the World Rowing Cup yellow jersey, we weren’t expecting it. I’m really happy and I’m sure my team is just as happy. Next, we’re going to a training camp in Austria and from there straight to the World Rowing Championships.”

Madalina Beres, Romania, Bronze
“It was a very good race! We wanted to do our best so a medal was a gift. The competition is very tough so now we’ll prepare hard for the World Rowing Championships.”

Re-watch the race here!

B-final

The British started off in the lead of this B-final and they held the lead through the middle of the race with a bit of a margin. Poland followed in second with Russia in third. These three crews were joined by Germany as they came into the final sprint. It was all on with the British proving to have the best sprint. The next three crews finished within a second of each other.

Results: GBR, POL, GER, RUS, CRO, CAN2