International Event Finals - BearingPoint Rowing World Cup

By Melissa Bray

Lightweight Men’s Pair

With three German crews lining up at the start, odds were on that at least one would make it to the medals podium. Germany’s second crew of Joerg Lehnigk and Joachim Drews took off at the start over World Champions, Denmark and world bronze medallists, Simon Carcagno and Michael Altman of the United States. But then Italy’s Nicola Moriconi and Salvatore Di Somma started to warm up. By the half way point Moriconi and Di Somma had the lead and worked on moving further ahead of the field.

Meanwhile, through the middle of the race, a very tight battle was going on between the United States and Germany two. Coming into the final sprint, Germany had the advantage over the US. But Carcagno and Altman had the better rhythm. At the line Italy held on to first with the US in second and Germany’s number two crew in third.

Women’s Four

Great Britain’s number two crew will be celebrating tonight after beating their number one boat. Great Britain one came out of the start as the early leaders before Great Britain two took over. In the final sprint a suffering Great Britain one was overtaken by Denmark who finished second.

Men’s Coxed Pair

Two boats started and one boat dominated. Great Britain’s Richard Egington and James Livingston with coxswain Peter Rudge already had an open water lead and only 400 metres of the race was completed. Italy sat way back in second and crossed the line over nine seconds behind Great Britain.

Lightweight Women’s Single

Australia’s top single sculler, Amber Halliday took off at a cracking pace. However, just like in her earlier races this week, Halliday’s fitness let her down. The Australian is coming back from an accident that took her out of training for several weeks and this will be her last race in the single before she moves back into the Olympic double. Leading for the first half of the race Halliday slipped back to second as Germany’s Nina Gaesler took the lead with Marie-Louise Draeger of Germany following closely. Draeger burnt herself out before the finish at Munich and today she was rowing a more controlled race.

But Draeger was too controlled. Gaesler’s superior sprint kept her in the lead and she wins her second World Cup gold for this season. Draeger overtook Halliday to finish second with Halliday falling back to third. 

Lightweight Men’s Single

Today Peter Ording of Germany made it a hat trick. He opened the season by winning at Poznan, then added a win at Munich and finished it off by leading the whole race of the final World Cup. Behind him three Italian crews painted the course in blue. First Emanuele Federici challenged Ording and held on to the second spot for the opening half of the race. Then the much decorated, Stefano Basalini, moved up on his fellow countryman and went past to take second then started to close the gap on Ording.

Ording retained the lead and rows away from the 2004 World Cup season with a clean sweep of three gold medals. 

Lightweight Women’s Quad

Despite a completely new line-up to the 2003 World Champion line-up China still came out on top. China moved through the momentary lead by Switzerland and spent most of the race traveling away from rest of the field. The positions did not change as a procession of no overlapping boats crossed the line with China in first, Switzerland in second and Great Britain finished third.

Lightweight Men’s Quad

The top three boats must have decided their order on the starting line with Italy choosing first, Germany accepting second and the Netherlands content with third. That is how it remained as Italy moved further and further away from Germany and the German’s stayed comfortably ahead of third. There was nothing much here for the crowd along the banks of the Rotsee to get excited about.

Lightweight Men’s Eight

Top lightweight rowing nations, Germany and Italy went head to head at the front of the field with Italy, featuring 42-year-old rowing stalwart, Carlo Gaddi, holding the upper hand through the first half of the race. Both countries were still neck and neck going through the third 500. Germany then gained the lead and in the final sprint moved further into the lead. Italy finished in second and Switzerland win bronze from third.

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