U23 Women's Single Sculls (BW1x) - Final

Lithuania’s Ieva Adomaviciute qualified for the A-Final with the fastest semifinal time. Unsurprisingly, she took the lead from the outset.

At the 500m mark, Adomaviciute was followed by Sweden’s Lovisa Claesson in second and Germany’s Julia Leiding in third. But in the second quarter, it was Switzerland’s Pascale Walker who moved up from fourth and took over Leiding to slip into third.

With 500m left to race, these positions remained unchanged. At the line, Lithuania was still in front by two boat lengths, while Sweden was comfortably ahead of Switzerland in bronze.

Results: LTU, SWE, SUI, GER, LAT, CRO

Ieva Adomaviciute – LTU – gold 
“I won gold in 2012 in the double here as a junior. It is so great to win three years after that. I’ve dreamed about it for a couple of weeks now.”

Lovisa Claesson – SWE – silver 
“It’s my first time on the podium. It was my goal to win a medal and I am really satisfied with my race. I’ve been in the single for only one week, it feels good.”

Pascale Walker – SUI – bronze 
“I never thought I could win a medal. Today I just thought, I need to go fast. I rowed really badly, but it worked. I am so surprised.”

B-Final

Ekaterina Pitirimova of Russia took an early lead, but China was there to challenge. Yue Zhou moved up from fourth at the 500m mark into second by the half-way mark and then stroked her way up into first ahead of Russia in the third quarter. Russia could not hold the pace.

Rating around 30 strokes per minute, Zhou powerfully moved into a boat length’s advantage over Pitirimova. Norway’s Thea Helseth had been following in third for most of the race and in the last stretch fueled her boat to overtake Russia and take second. 

Results: CHN, NOR, RUS, USA, UKR, ITA