Men's Quadruple Sculls (M4x) - Final

The reigning European Champions, Russia, missed World Rowing Cup II, coming to Lucerne well refreshed. But a bad heat two days ago put them into the repechage where they finished second to Italy. Instead it looked like this race would be all about Germany and Australia. Then a crew change for medical reasons brought a spare into Australia’s boat.

Russia leapt out into the lead with a flyer of a start, leaving Germany to play catch-up in second with Australia at the back of the field. Germany then began to close on Russia with New Zealand and Estonia battling it out for third. Estonia have brought their boat that finished fourth at the London Olympics back together and it looks like they are getting back towards the top. Germany’s Schulze, Wende, Schoof and Gruhne then did a big push that moved them clear ahead of Russia with New Zealand following suit. The New Zealand crew of Manson, Storey, Bridgewater and Uru finished ninth last month at World Rowing Cup II, but at this regatta they have shown a huge improvement.

In the final sprint Germany hit a stroke rate of 38 with New Zealand chasing them at 40. A rather calm looking Estonia followed in third. Russia had nothing more to give. Germany had retained their World Cup leader title.

Results: GER, NZL, EST, RUS, ITA, AUS

Karl Schulze (b) – GER – gold

It was hard, especially in the last 500m when the headwind came. I said: “Come on guys, we need to push now.” Feels good to win the yellow jersey.

We just found out that we are fast in the last 500m. We surprised ourselves, which is nice. Our goal is really to qualify the boat for the Olympics this year. And we know that some big crews are missing here.

The most important is that we’re back in the picture. The season was not good until now. We only had B-Finals. This combination is the same as at the Olympics and it seems to work, even after only one and a half weeks of training. 

B-Final

All crews got away quickly before Poland did a big piece in the second 500 and left the rest of the crews in a line behind them. The line behind Poland continued with the Poles managing to get nearly a boat length over the rest of the field and the psychological advantage. In the final sprint, Poland hit 36 strokes and looked comfortable leading.

Results: POL, SUI, FRA, CZE