17 Apr 2016
Women's Eight (W8+) - Final
The highest ranking crew here, going by last year’s World Rowing Championships, was Canada who finished third at the World Rowing Championships and are also the current World Cup holders. At the start of the race Russia, the Netherlands and Canada moved away together with just Germany a bit off the pace. Canada got to the first 500m mark first with the Netherlands in second. Canada has already qualified for the Rio Olympic Games while the Netherlands will have to go to the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta if they want a chance to race in Rio.
Canada made a move at the 800m mark and that helped push them away from the Dutch. Now Russia moved up on the Netherlands as this looked to be where the real tussle was going on. Germany, meanwhile, looked to be off the pace that had been set by the leaders.
In the final sprint both Russia and the Netherlands closed in on Canada as three crews headed to the finish line with just one second separating them. The very experience Lesley Thompson-Willie in the coxswain seat for Canada was doing her best to push her crew on, but it looked like nothing could stop the flying Dutch. At the line the Netherlands just squeaked through to take the gold.
Results: NED, CAN, RUS, GER
Olivia Van Rooijen – NED – gold
“We went into this race with full confidence because yesterday we mostly focused on our start and doing a push at 600m. But we were missing a bit of fire in the sprint. For today we decdied to do the same as yesterday, but to push through in the 3rd 500metres. The coxswain called the sprint pretty early and we felt the momentum, so we went for it.”
Lauren Wilkinson – CAN – silver
“We would have loved to be the ones in the middle of the podium, but it’s still early in the season so there is still lots of speed to gain. It’s always fantastic to race in a setting like this!”
Anastasia Karabelshchikova – RUS – bronze
“We still have a lot to improve this season, especially the middle part of the race because that was our weakest part last year. Currently we are based in Greece so we will go back there to prepare for our next race, the European Championships.”