Women's Pair (W2-) - Final

This boat class has been dominated by Great Britain ever since Helen Glover and Heather Stanning took gold at the London Olympic Games. Glover and Stanning joined back together last season to remain not only unbeaten but absolutely dominating their competition. The duo came to this final with the fastest qualifying time from yesterday’s semifinals. The question was, what would be their winning margin today?

As usual Stanning and Glover got out to an early lead. But it was the Under-23 Champions from New Zealand, Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler who decided to challenge. By the middle of the race, Glover and Stanning had managed to get a bit of a lead with the two United States crews fighting it out for third.

In the sprint to the line Megan Kalmoe and Kerry Simmonds of USA 2 really started to move. This turn of affairs meant that the open water lead the British was used to was not there. Glover and Stanning had to keep the pressure on and Gowler and Prendergast had to hold on. At the line the British had won in a time just half a second off the World Cup Best Time. Kalmoe and Simmonds took silver and Gowler and Prendergast were the bronze medallists.

Results: GBR, USA2, NZL, USA1, DEN, FRA

Heather Stanning (stroke) – GBR – gold

“The race was good. We did what we wanted to do. Helen was able to race and give calls at the same time. It is one step higher than the European championships and so we have stepped up a level. We are happy with the gold, but we are not taking it for granted.”

Kerry Simmonds (stroke) – USA – silver

I was really excited to see what the race was going to be because I know that everyone in this race was really strong. We are really happy with our race, we tried to stay with GBR the first 1000 metres because we knew we could keep it up through second thousand. We were impressed with how tight the race was.”

Grace Prendergast (bow) – NZL – bronze

“I am really happy with the race, we are also going to do the eight in Aiguebelette and try to qualify them both. We will do the eight at Lucerne.”

B-final

Australia’s new line up of Molly Goodman and Genevieve Horton got away quickly. This crew claimed fame by flipping during their heat, but they got their boat to the finish line which made it possible for them to race today. The Australians still had a very comfortable lead going through the middle of the race. But then China 1 of Min Zhang and Tian Miao began to close on the leaders. In a huge sprint to the line, rating 36, China came through to finish first as Australia faded.

Results: CHN1, POL, AUS, GBR2, CRO, ITA1