Stephansen and Maeyens duel at Head of the Cork

Both Tim Maeyens of Belgium and Henrik Stephansen of Denmark have expressed their intentions of going after one of the remaining three positions in the men’s single sculls for the 2012 London Olympics and the Head of the Cork pitted these two rowers against each other for the first time.

Maeyens, 30, is a two-time Olympic finalist in the single while Stephansen, 23, is the reigning World Champion in the lightweight men’s single sculls and in his quest for his first time at the Olympics Stephansen is going to attempt to get a spot in the open weight class as there is no lightweight single at the Olympics.

These two top scullers battled it out but it was the talented local, Portugal’s top international rower, Pedro Fraga who came away with the first prize.

The battle between Olympic hopefuls Maeyens and Stephansen went to Stephansen who finished second after having a close race with Maeyens along the 6000m course. Fraga, who is part of Portugal’s top lightweight double, finished second in this race last year behind Olympic Champion Olaf Tufte of Norway.

This year in the mass start of 65 single scullers, Fraga got into the lead and held a 32 stroke rate for the body of the race. Stephansen, also on about 32, pressed Fraga hard, but Fraga was able to respond to Stephansen’s moves.

By the half-way point, Fraga was able to push away. At the end Fraga said he followed his own race plan of a fast start and to keep the pressure on Stephansen and Maeyens. Maeyens commented at the end that he was unable to get up to Fraga but it was a close fight with Stephansen for the entire way. On the last corner coming into the home straight Maeyens did some bad steering and Stephansen took advantage of this to move ahead. Stephansen finished 10 seconds in front of Maeyens and 23 seconds down on Fraga.

Fraga’s lightweight doubles teammate, Nuno Mendes was fourth.

The first woman home, and 13th overall, was Fie Erichsen of Denmark. Last year’s winner, Tale Gjoertz of Norway was in second and Tine Hiort Schoyen of Norway in third. Coming in fifth woman overall, was Eva Karppinen, daughter of three-time Olympic Champion Pertti Karppinen. Eva was on a training camp in Portugal and is coached by her famous father.

The conditions were good for the rowers with about 18 degrees Celsius and flat water.

All of the medallists received a prize of a cork bucket, signifying this area for its tradition in growing cork.