After racing they said.....

W1x – CZE, Miroslava Knapkova, silver medallist

On achieving a second position behind Ekaterina Karsten:

“I’m very surprised, it’s a great success. I only started rowing two years ago, which is not long, so I’m very surprised to have come second, it’s great!”

On her goals for the rest of the season and the world championships:

“I hope it will go well. This is a great motivation anyway.”

M1x – GER, Marcel Hacker, Gold Medallist

On being back on form this season:

“Well, not yet on top form, there’s still a lot to do, but for the start of the World Cup this race went very well, it’s a good start.”

On his goals for the championships:

It’s all still open, it will be open races. It’s a new race and it will have to be rowed over 2000 metres.”

W2x – GER, Kerstin El Qalqili (Kowalski), Silver medallist

On the new German double sculls combination:

“The result is not that great. I thought there would be a kick forward, but it didn’t happen.”

“The future of our crew will not depend on this race.”

“We haven’t trained much together. The German Championships were a couple of weeks ago and I rowed with another partner.”

M2x – HUN, Akos Haller, Gold medallist

On being back in the double after rowing the beginning of the season in a quad:

“The quad didn’t go well in Duisburg, we were fighting for one of the last places and it was really not going well. The trainings were not going well either so we decided to switch back into the double. We started a little bit shaky – we haven’t rowed in the double since last year at the World Championships but we are getting into our stride again. We needed some races to really get back into it – and we still need some races to get back to last year’s form. We feel that we are stronger but we are still looking for each other in the water a bit. But it is working well – and it was working well today.”

M4- -ITA, Carlo Mornati (s), Silver medallist

“No, I’m not disappointed, it’s a good comeback. Since the Olympics we are preparing to row in this boat – it’s just the beginning.”

“The objective for the World Championships is a podium.”

“We will only be going to the Lucerne World Cup this year, not Munich.”

“It was a good race, with good competition. We knew these guys (the opposing crews) had won the World Championships last year, coming 1^st  (GBR) and second (GER). Since the Olympics we had not been in this boat class, so we wanted to use this as a test and it has worked out quite well.”

“It’s a new combination, but we have all rowed in the men’s coxless four in close vicinity of the several times World Champions, so it’s just the start. It’s a new combination for this year, but we have always trained together.”

LM4- DEN, Soeren Madsen, Gold Medallist

“It’s good to win back the fist place from Austria. We will definitely try to stay where we are now, but we still have a lot of things to work on. As you can see we have a new boat, and we are still adjusting on that boat, and switching from the old type to this one. It’s something we have been thinking about for a long time. We tried it this spring and we are quite happy with it. We can feel that it has a lot of potential.”

On the effect of the delayed start:

“It didn’t really affect the concentration – I’m too old to be distracted any more. We saw what happened to the Germans, and we discussed it in the boat that we were ready to face whatever was to come.  We knew we had to keep our focus on the race because it could come at any time. Actually we were hoping that they would take the start later so we could have the German boat with us, but I think I could see that it was quite damaged.”

M4x – ITA, Agostino Abbagnale, Bronze Medallist

On their result:

“More or less satisfied. We had quite a bad race, we went off towards the buoys which compromised us for the rest of the race. This was due to boat problems.”

“For the rest of the season, we will see what happens in the next race.”

W8+ – GBR Christian Cormack – replacement cox of the BLR W8+, Bronze medallist

Christian Cormack of GBR after winning bronze in the W8+ with Belarus…

“It was quite good fun actually, it was quite different from anything I’ve done before. Although they don’t understand my words, they could tell by the tone of voice what you’re asking them to do. So we managed to communicate surprisingly well.”

“It’s certainly the fastest women’s eight I’ve been in. We got ahead of these guys (Romania) at the start. Then we started slipping away and it was quite hard to communicate, and they didn’t really respond. Then I didn’t really know how to get the message across“

“I didn’t know what to expect at all from the crew. I didn’t understand their strategy, they didn’t explain it to me. We went for a practice outing before, but I just sort of went along for the ride.”

“They got the message that I wanted a bit more, beyond that it was hard to put much in.”