Lightweight Men's Double Sculls (LM2x) -Final

On Friday the Netherlands won the Bled International Regatta over Portugal. But then in yesterday’s semifinals, the winning time for Portugal was just a fraction faster than the Dutch time in their semifinal. Today Portugal again met the Netherlands and everyone knew it would be a full 2000m race.

Tycho and Vincent Muda of the Netherlands had the fastest start with the Czech Republic starting out as the nearest threat. At the half way mark the Muda twins still had the lead with Nuno Goncalves and Pedro Fraga of Portugal back in fourth. The margins between the top four boats, though, was very tight and the crews stamina would be the winner in the second half of the race. With 500m left to row the Muda twins had already upped their rating and pushed away from Ondrej and Jan Vetesnik of the Czech Republic in second. But all four top crews were now closing on each other and Poland and Portugal were the crews that were really flying. At the line the Muda brothers had just held on to first with Portugal sprinting through to take second and Poland’s Artur Mikolajczewski and Milosz Jankowski in third.

Results: NED, POR, POL, AUT, CZE, SUI

Gold – Vincent Muda – Netherlands

It’s a hard race as always in the lightweight double. It’s the first time of the weekend that I kept my head in the boat and did what Tycho said.

Silver – Nuno Coelho Goncalves – Portugal

After 21 years of rowing, it’s a dream come true to be in the final at a world cup and even better to win a medal.

Bronze – Artur Mikolajczewski – Poland

The last 500 was crazy, each hundred metres we pushed harder and sometimes I looked at the other crews to motivate me. My family will be in Poznan for the European Championships, but other than that racing is the same.

B-final

The semifinals were very tight in this boat class yesterday and the narrow margins meant that today’s B-final would be fast. Hungary’s Daniel Matyasovszki and Peter Galambos were solid at the start and then in the lead by the middle of the race. They held this lead until the end and looked content with their result.

Results:  HUN, TUR, CZE, BRA, CHI, CHN