Great Britain controls adaptive finals

Arms Only Women’s Single (ASW1x)

After yesterday’s race for lanes everything pointed to newcomer Alla Lysenko of Ukraine winning this race. In the two boat field, Lysenko took on Nathalie Benoit of France was totally outclassed and finished a huge 19 seconds behind Lysenko over the 1000m distance. Lysenko finishes her first ever international outing with a gold medal and a big confidence boost. No doubt we will be seeing more of Lysenko in the future. A late withdrawl by Helene Raynsford of Great Britain meant that the Paralympic champion could not race here.

Results: UKR, FRA

Arms Only Men’s Single (ASM1x)

Paralympic champion, Tom Aggar of Great Britain must have been taking it relatively easy when he raced for lanes yesterday. Although Aggar won, he did not dominate. Today Aggar broke away from the rest of the field by the half way point and proceeded to widen the gap as he stormed towards the finish line. Perhaps the surprise second place was adaptive newcomer, Andrew Houghton of Great Britain. Houghton, 28, is racing for the first time internationally and finished in second ahead of Andrii Kryvchun of Ukraine. In yesterday’s race for lanes Kryvchun had beaten Houghton, but today the better finish by Houghton gave him the silver medal place. Kryvchun is also new to adaptive rowing and has made a positive start to his first season.

Results: GBR1, GBR2, UKR, NZL, ESP, HUN

Trunk and Arms Mixed double (TAMix2x)

For years this event has seen the face of American, Angela Madsen at the front of the field with partner Scott Brown. But Madsen is currently racing across the Indian Ocean in a boat full of able bodied rowers. Doing the shorter, 1000m distance in Munich, James Roberts and Samantha Scowen of Great Britain got off the start line just ahead of Poland’s Jolanta Pawlak and Piotr Majka. Roberts is building on his Paralympic experience with new partner Scowen and it looks to be working well. Despite the pressure asserted by Pawlak and Majka, Roberts and Scowen managed to move away and take the gold medal. Pawlak and Majka, who have remained together since their sixth place finish at the 2008 Paralympic Games, take silver with Israel’s Paralympians (and husband and wife team) Igor and Mary Kogan finising third.

Results: GBR, POL, ISR1, FRA, ISR2, IRL

Legs, Trunk and Arms Mixed Coxed Four (LTAMix4+)

The LTAMix4+ can have a mixture of disabilities in the boat and often blind rowers dominate. The crews are coxed by an able-bodied coxswain who steering them to the finish. Today, Germany kept Great Britain honest in the final adaptive rowing race. Victoria Hansford, James Roe, David Smith with stroke Naomi Riches and coxswain Rhiannon Jones, got out in front at the start with Germany right on their tails. Yesterday in the race for lanes Germany had not been so close to the British, but today they had found an extra gear and were giving it all that they could. Ireland followed in third but never got close enough to truly attack the leaders.

At the line Great Britain won their third adaptive medal gold medal of the second Rowing World Cup.