U23 Men's Pair (BM2-) - Final

Australia came into this A-Final as the 2014 under-23 silver medallists in this event. Jack Hargreaves and Nicholas Wheatley were both in last year’s boat and this year have been part of their national senior team, racing to bronze in the pair at the World Rowing Cup in Varese, Italy.

Romanians Vald-Dragos and Toader-Anderei Gontaru are part of their senior men’s four crew, in which they won bronze at the World Rowing Cup in Lucerne two weekends ago. They lined up in this race alongside Australia in middle lane four. The Romanian crew propelled themselves out in front the moment the light turned green. Rating high, at 38 strokes per minute, they were doing all they could to increase their lead over Australia in second at the half-way mark.

In third at the 1000m mark was Serbia, with Viktor Pivac and Martin Mackovic, who took bronze in this event at last year’s World Rowing Under 23 Championships. But Great Britain would not let the Serbs have it so easily and challenged, taking over in third position with one quarter to go.

Romania were still leading by one boat length ahead of Australia at 1500m. Despite Australia having the faster times in the qualification rounds, it was Romania’s gutsy race that led them to cross the line in gold. Serbia had withstood the British challenge, reclaiming the bronze medal position.

Results: ROU, AUS, SRB, GBR, GER, AUT

Vlad-Dragos Aicoboae – ROU – gold
“It’s a very good result for us as we are double World Champion in the pair and the four. It was very difficult to race in boat boat classes as the times are really short between the races. We want to qualify for Rio in the four.”

Nicholas Wheatley – AUS – silver
“It’s probably our best race of the regatta. We gave everything we had. We are a little disappointed not to get gold, but the Romanians were really strong. We’ll go back to training for Aiguebelette.”

Martin Mackovic – SRB – bronze
“It wasn’t our best, as we have only been together for one month. So technically it was not very good, but we are really happy about the result.”

B-Final

Finland’s boat in lane three was the leader for half the race, with the French keeping power in reserve for the second half. After the 1000m mark, France delved into their stored-up strength to put on the pressure, overtake Finland and increase their lead to clear water ahead of the rest of the field. Finland began losing power, with Hungary moving up into second.

Results: FRA, HUN, BRA, FIN, USA, MDA