Women's Quadruple Sculls (W4x) - Final

Yesterday’s preliminary race showed that the World and European Champions, Germany were the fastest. Their margin, however, was not great over Australia. These two crews made up the middle lanes for today’s final. Germany’s Thiele, Baer, Arnold and Schmidla got off the line first but by the 1000m mark there was just  one and a half seconds separating the top four boats. This virtual line continued before Germany managed to shake off Australia and Poland with New Zealand the biggest threat.

In the final sprint Germany kept their cool and rating 35 held off the rest of the field. Australia, rating 37, did all that they could to stay ahead of the Netherlands who rated 38. Poland, the silver medallists from World Rowing Cup II in Varese had to accept fifth. While Australia, who placed fifth at the Varese World Cup, had earned silver.

Results: GER, AUS, NED, NZL, POL, GBR

Annekatrin Thiele (b) – GER – gold

It’s great to win here. I’m optimistic after this race, that we can defend our title in Aiguebelette. We have enough to improve, but we don’t really look at what the others are doing.

Jessica Hall (b) – AUS – silver  

We had a good race. It’s a good step up on Varese. The conditions were tricky here. We have a lot to improve until the World Rowing Championships which we are excited about.

Chantal Achterberg (2) – NED – bronze  

We had a bad start and not a really good first half. Then it got better and the second half was quicker. I’m sure we can improve a lot until Aiguebelette.