Women's Double Sculls (W2x) - Final

New Zealand and Belarus were winners of each semifinal yesterday and they took up the two centre lanes today. New Zealand’s Eve MacFarlane and Zoe Stevenson won the World Rowing Cup last month in Varese, but Belarus’s Yuliya Bichyk and Ekaterina Karsten had the fastest qualifying time. At the start it was France that came sprinting out. But their lead didn’t last long as World Best Time holders, Olympia Aldersey and Sally Kehoe of Australia took the lead with Belarus just behind in second. MacFarlane and Stevenson sat at the back of the field.

Then in the second half of the race MacFarlane and Stevenson began to show their true speed. They overtook France and Germany and started to close on the Australians. In the final sprint the New Zealand power came through. Rating 37, MacFarlane and Stevenson closed on the lead. Kehoe and Aldersey could not hold them off at a 36 stroke rate with Karsten and Bichyk right in the mix. With 30m to row MacFarlane and Stevenson had their nose in front.

Results: NZL, AUS, BLR, GER, GRE, FRA

Eve Macfarlane (b) – NZL – gold

The race wasn’t as we planned. We had a rough start. In the last 500m we just rowed stroke after stroke making the boat as fast as possible without looking to the others.

Sally Kehoe (s) – AUS – silver  

We are happy with the result. We did a good step-up from Varese. We look forward to the next weeks to improve. We’ll try to get on top of this very tight field.

Ekaterina Karsten (s) – BLR – bronze  

The race was good, but we are a bit disappointed as the finish was not good.

B-Final

A crab in the semifinal yesterday thwarted Great Britain’s chance of being in the A-final. Instead Olympic Champion in this boat class, Katherine Grainger and partner Victoria Thornley raced at the head of the field in the B-final. With Grainger and Thornley in the lead a line formed behind them. The line never caught up and the British finish seventh overall at this regatta.

Results: GBR, FIN, DEN, ITA, IRL, CZE