2014 World Rowing Championships Friday finals

For immediate release
Amsterdam, 28 August 2014

The 2014 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam, the Netherlands has moved into the second day of finals with the eight International boat classes being contested. Starting at 16:00 CET these include the women’s four, men’s coxed pair, lightweight men’s pair, lightweight men’s and women’s single sculls, lightweight men’s and women’s quadruple sculls and lightweight men’s eight.

The women’s four attracted the highest number of entries of recent years and they have been narrowed down to the final six with defending champions the United States meeting New Zealand for the first time. New Zealand won their heat earlier in the week and been showing impressive boat speed.

A large amount of interest has been generated for the men’s coxed pair as the World and Olympic Champions from the men’s pair, Eric Murray and Hamish Bond of New Zealand have set the challenge to race both the pair and the coxed pair at this regatta. They won their heat with relative ease and will face winners of the corresponding heat, Alan Sinclair and Scott Durant of Great Britain.

The lightweight women’s single sculls will see Kathleen Bertko of the United States face Eveline Peleman of Belgium. Bertko comes from a background of team boat rowing while Peleman comes to these World Championships following a medal at the under-23 level. For the lightweight men’s single, all six finalists could have a shot at the medals with Italy’s Marcello Miani the favourite. 

Today saw the finals of the five para-rowing boat classes with Australia finding gold success in two of the races. Eric Horrie successfully defended his World Championship title in the para men’s single sculls (ASM1x). This was followed by Gavin Bellis and Kathryn Ross in the para mixed double sculls (TAMix2x).

The para LTA mixed double sculls (LTAMix2x) was won for a second year in a row by Kateryna Morozova and Dmytro Aleksieiev of Ukraine with Great Britain continuing their domination in the para mixed coxed four (LTAMix4+).

Friday’s finals begin at 16:00 CET and continue through until 17:45 CET. These will be live streamed on www.worldrowing.com.

For results, schedules, full race reports, photos and live blogging go to www.worldrowing.com.