Men's Four (M4-) - Final

South Africa is having a fabulous regatta and so far they have medalled in every final already rowed this morning. This must have rubbed off on their four as South Africa got away the quickest. The South Africans came to this final through yesterday’s repechage and they must have decided to give it their all at the start. By the middle of the race the United States had taken over the lead. The United States took bronze at the London Olympics and they have retained two of those athletes for 2016.

The 2013 World Champions, the Netherlands followed in second. Then the reigning World Champions, Italy began to move. Italy have always had a good sprint and it would be up to the rest of the field to try and hold them off as not only would they be using their high rating sprint, they would also be using the home crowd advantage. Italy overtook the Netherlands to move into second and then tried to attack the Americans. Charles Cole, Matthew Miller, Henrik Rummel and Seth Weil of the United States held them off.

At the line the United States were the gold medallists. Italy took silver and the Netherlands held on to bronze ahead of Canada. Just one second separated the top three boats. Phew!

Results: USA, ITA, NED, CAN, RUS, RSA

B-final

Spain had the best results of these four boats after yesterday’s repechage, but it was Argentina who had the early lead. Then going into the middle of the race Spain did a push and nearly overtook Argentina. Then they did another push that earned them the lead. Spain held the lead until the end.

Results: ESP, ARG, SRB, ITA

Seth Weil – USA – gold
“Tomorrow we are flying back to the USA for more training towards our final selections June 21. None of our crews have been confirmed yet, but the overall group is very strong and we support each other in the races for the Olympic spots.”

Matteo Castaldo – ITA – silver
“We’re pretty happy with the result because we’ve had some health problems this week. Last year we had a similar start to the season which means that we are in for a great season. Next race for us will be World Rowing Cup III in Poznan.”

Vincent van der Want – NED – bronze
“For us this has been the end of a three week training camp here in Italy. We have not had a lot of time to prepare since we just finished our selections to confirm this final squad for Rio. This has been a good weekend to test the waters with the other crews in the field, a lot of other good crews were here with us. An interesting part of our preparation for the Games will be that we’ll go to race at Henley Royal Regatta.”