Medals spread across the world in Universiade rowing finals

Today eight finals were raced on the 2,000m course after five had been staged on Sunday evening. Bustling grandstands of athletes, coaches, family and teammates from other Universiade sports cheered on their crews as each of them put on their best performance in the hope of earning medals.

Lightweight women’s single sculls (LW1x)
The first final of the day saw six nervous lightweight scullers back their boats onto the start pontoon, all of them with the hope of reaching the finish line first. Coming into this final South Africa’s Kirsten McCann and Olga Arkadova of Russia had won their respective semifinals relatively comfortably and so today’s final was when they would unleash their maximum power.

McCann is familiar to success in Kazan. In 2012 she earned gold here at the World University Rowing Championships and so today she hoped to repeat last year’s winning performance. Blasting out of the blocks, McCann got her bow in front on Arkadova’s in the first few strokes.

Arkadova fought hard in pursuit of McCann and the power she was putting out saw the rest of the field slip into a race of their own. With the first two medals looking certain to go to these scullers, the race for bronze became the entertainment factor of the race. Italy’s Eleonora Trivella and Julia Trautvetter of New Zealand battled hard, with the order changing between the two scullers as the race progressed. Clocking the fastest final 500m of the field was enough to get the Italian to the line before the Kiwi.

Result: RSA, RUS, ITA, NZL, AUT, KOR

Lightweight men’s single sculls (LM1x)
At a maximum weight of 72kg, the rowers in the lightweight men’s single may all be of a similar physical size but today’s students on the water in Lake Kaban were not of the same speed.

Germany’s fastest qualifier for this final, Julius Peschel, powered his way out of the blocks and by the first 500m he had taken almost a length on his closest challenger, Jerzy Kowalski of Poland. Determined not to let the margin grow too much between his boat and the German’s, Kowalski worked hard to keep an overlap with Peschel. He also had a charging Hungarian, Gabor Csepregi, to worry about.
Coming into the closing stages of the race Kowalski made a final attempt to pull in Peschel but the line came too soon. Peschel took gold, Kowalski silver ahead of bronze medallist  Csepregi.

Result: GER, POL, HUN, RUS, AUS, SUI

Women’s four (W4-)
The women’s four had the local crowd on their feet as Russia rowed down the 2,000m course in dominant style. Yulia Pozdnyakova, Oxana Strelkova, Anastasia Karabelshchikova and Alexandra Fedorova used long, powerful strokes to get themselves to the front of the field and pull further away every time their oars drove through the water.

The remainder of the field was locked in battle with no crew other than Russia having the luxury of feeling secure about their position in the race. Ukraine managed to hold their boat in silver medal position for most of the race and it looked as though they were heading for that second-place finish. That was until an awesome charge from South Africa saw the Ukrainians pushed out of silver and into bronze in the final 500m.

With groups of excited fans and teammates cheering in the grandstands, Russia were welcomed home to a gold medal finish. South Africa used every ounce of strength they had and it had paid off in the form of a silver medal, leaving Ukraine to take bronze.

Result: RUS, RSA, UKR, CZE, ITA, BLR

Men’s pair (M2-)
By the half-way point of today’s finals racing the crowd had gotten well warmed up. As the men’s pairs came onto the big screen the chanting, clapping and cheering began. Russia and New Zealand were the only two crews to have taken a direct route to today’s final, with all other boats having had to face the repechages.

Russia got out to the front of the field after a powerful start. It looked as though having an extra race had been of benefit to some of the other crews as it was Ukraine and France who followed the Russian duo. New Zealand followed behind in fourth but their race never really got going. By the first 500m the race order that was set would be that which would cross the line.

Russia reached the line first, holding off an attack from the Ukrainians that saw them clock the last 500m more than five seconds faster than the gold medallists. A very content French duo took bronze, much to the delight of their singing teammates.

Result: RUS, UKR, FRA, NZL, BRA, MAS

Men’s double sculls (M2x)
There is no doubting that the Lithuanian rowing team sent to the 2013 Universiade meant business. Having taken gold in the women’s double yesterday, the men’s double started their final with the exact same end goal in mind. It took just a few strokes to see the kind of race strategy Rolandas Mascinskas and Saulius Ritter were following: get out of the blocks fast and row as hard as possible for 2,000m. The Lithuanian duo is that which can be seen at senior World Rowing regattas and today they used the strength and experience gained from such high-level competition to completely dominate the men’s double final.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia were locked in a tightly-fought battle that the Lithuanians could look over from their ever-growing clear-water lead. The order shifted between the two crews but as the race came into the final stages it was clear that these three nations would stand on the podium.

Lithuania’s Mascinskas and Ritter had rowed the perfect race to take gold, and Ukraine had found a fast final 500m to get ahead of Russia who took bronze.

Result: LTU, UKR, RUS, CZE, ITA, HUN

Men’s single sculls (M1x)
Two London 2012 Olympians lined up in this men’s single sculls final: Mindaugas Griskonis of Lithuania and Mexico’s Patrick Loliger. Griskonis did not hold on to his title as European Champion in the single at the 2013 European Rowing Championships and so clearly seemed out to prove he still has winning speed, getting out to the front of the field from the first strokes of the race. This sent a message to his competitors: if you want to catch me you are going to have to work very hard.

Up for the challenge was Ukraine’s top student sculler, Sergii Gumennyi. He chased Griskonis hard for the first 500m until the experienced Mexican, Loliger, dug deep and moved from fourth to second place before the half-way mark.

Taking a look over his shoulder and noticing that the Lithuanian sculler had a clear-water lead on him, Loliger pushed hard, putting clear water between himself and the Ukranian. But Griskonis was not going to let his fellow Olympian any closer to him and crossed the finish line more than five seconds ahead of Loliger who took silver. Ukraine’s Gumennyi had rowed to bronze.

Results: LTU, MEX, UKR, POL, AUS, BEL

Lightweight men’s double sculls (LM2x)
This final of the fastest student lightweight men’s doubles in the world saw two sets of brothers line up at the start. It has become increasingly common in this boat class to see siblings race together at the under-23 and senior levels internationally. One of these sibling line-ups was Under 23 World Champions, Paul and Bernhard Sieber, and so the rest of the field knew that it would be a big task to get to the finish line ahead of these Austrian brothers. But it certainly would not stop them from trying.

As expected, a fast start put the Siebers into an early lead and the experience of international racing meant that they were able to read the race well and know exactly how to react to push from the rest of the field.

Ukraine’s Igor Khmara and Stanislav Kovalov established themselves in silver medal position from early on in the race and Italy’s Simone Molteni and Leone Maria Barbaro sat in third. However, the feisty Mexican duo were not willing to give up their chances of a Universiade medal and in the third quarter of the race managed to get their boat ahead of the Italians. The Italians had enough energy to react and pulled their medal position back.

On the podium all three crews were delighted and celebrated their medals to the cheers of their student teammates and supporters.

Results: AUT, UKR, ITA

Men’s eight (M8+)
The final race of the 2013 Universiade rowing regatta was the highly anticipated men’s eight. The eight is a popular boat class in universities around the world and so the athletes in this boat class in today’s final are likely to have clocked many training miles in it. For many of those racing in the eight today this would have been the boat in which they first learned to row, thus making a medal in it extra special.

The Russian eight clearly wanted to give the Russian fans something to cheer for as they blasted out of the start in this final race of the day. On the big screen the crowds cheered fanatically every time the crew in blue, white and red of Russia came into view.

Russian dominance in this race was too much for the field to challenge and the order that was set by the 1,000m mark was that which crossed the finish line, marking the end of the 2013 Universiade Rowing Regatta.

Result: RUS, UKR, NED, BLR, POL, USA