Under-23 Men’s Quadruple Sculls (BM4x) – Final

Australia had been looking good through the lesser rounds and they were up against the fast Polish crew today. Getting away the quickest was Germany along with Poland and Australia. Under pressure from Australia, Poland kept their stroke rate high, but the Australians had earned a small lead. First to the 500m mark was Australia with Poland and Germany right there.

Through the middle of the race Australia held the lead with New Zealand now moving up. They had overtaken Germany and were closing on Poland. The crowd was on their feet as crews closed on Australia. Australia still had the lead, but New Zealand was absolutely flying. Poland had no answer and were now under threat from Italy. In a photo finish Australia had scored gold by just 0.41 of a second. New Zealand earned silver and the Italians had snatched bronze.

Results: AUS, NZL, ITA, POL, GBR, GER

Robert Black (b), Gold, Australia
“We knew that Poland was going to go out fast in the start, but we focused on a fast rhythm at 38. We really worked on getting out front in the first thousand and stay focused on us. It was just a beautiful rhythm.”

Cameron Crampton, Silver, New Zealand
“In the last 500m our only call was ‘half a length’, we knew that was the distance we had to make up. In the end it al came down to the size of our hearts, how much we really wanted it.”

Ivan Capuano (b), Bronze, Italy
“We had a very good start, but at the 400m mark we had some trouble dealing with the wind and we dropped back to fifth place. So we did a big push in the third quarter and just closed our eyes in the final sprint to give it our all.”