Men's Quadruple Sculls (M4x) - Olympic Final

The Olympic Champions, Germany have not had such a good run leading up to Rio. With three of the same Olympic boat members still there, they made the most of the start of this race and got away the quickest. Following in second was last year’s silver medallists, Australia with Estonia following in third. Estonia finished fourth at the London Olympics in this boat class and the crew included the very seasoned Tonu Endrekson. Endrekson won silver in the Olympic men’s double back in 2004. Germany, who are the reigning World Champions, continued to lead coming into the final sprint. The crew of Wende, Schoof, Schulze and Gruhne were having the race of their career.

Australia’s Forsterling, Belonogoff, Girdlestone and McRae looked good in second with Estonia coming through in third. Germany had gotten rid of all of this season’s demons to win the first Olympic gold medal of 2016 in rowing. Karl Schulze stood up in the boat, Philipp Wende followed, saluting with his oar. This was their moment. Australia had done it for silver and the small eastern European nation of Estonia had earned bronze. Andrei Jamsa, Allar Raja, Tonu Endrekson and Kaspar Taimsoo were Olympic medallists. This is the first medal for Estonia at Rio and potentially their sole medal.

Results: GER, AUS, EST, POL, GBR, UKR

Lauritz SCHOOF (GER) – gold

“Even if we had to go through the repechage, which is the hard way. We rowed at the start like animals and then we stayed in front.”

“We were looking for gold. We had a good race, but the Germans were better than us.”

“It’s amazing. The Australians were too far for us today, but a medal is a medal, we are very satisfied. Conditions are great to row today.”

Olympic B-final

Four boats lined up to vie for Olympic spots seven to ten in the world. Lithuania got away the quickest using a 38 stroke rate pace to stay ahead of Switzerland. Switzerland then pushed into the lead. This crew finished fifth at last year’s World Rowing Championships and they had high expectations to be in the A-final here in Rio. Late qualifiers, Canada then started to put the heat on and went after Switzerland, overtaking Lithuania in the process. At the back, but not too far back was New Zealand. The New Zealand crew was a late call up after the qualified Russian crew was made ineligible. Canada, rating 45, got close to Switzerland, but the Swiss remained in control.

Results: SUI, CAN, LTU, NZL