Under-23 Women’s Single Sculls (BW1x) – Final

The fastest qualifying time coming into this final went to Ieva Adomaviciute of Lithuania who also is the defending under-23 World Champion. Sweden’s Lovisa Claesson has also proved to be very quick this week and she won her semifinal. At the start Carlotta Nwajide of Germany was the first to show and she set a very fast pace getting to the first 500m mark nearly a boat length ahead of the rest of the field. Then Adomaviciute began to close the gap and in the process got ahead of Lovisa Claesson of Sweden.

Through the half way mark the margins had become close with less than half a metre between the three leaders – Nwajide, Adomaviciute and Claesson. Then in the third 500 Adomaviciute did a piece that got her ahead of Nwajide with Claesson moving with her. At 27 strokes per minute Adomaviciute kept her strokes long and her boat in the lead. Sweden, Lithuania and Germany now had a big gap over the rest of the field. Lithuania won, Sweden took silver and Germany won bronze.

Results: LTU, SWE, GER, USA, AUS, CZE

Ieva Adomaviciute, Gold, Lithuania
“I knew all the girls would be there up to the 1500m to fight for the gold medal. Last year it was much easier to win, this year there were so many more girls and the overall level was much higher.”

Lovisa Claesson, Silver, Sweden
“I was really focused on myself and was able to find length even with the headwind. It was a really fast first thousand and I was excited to be keeping up.”

Carlotta Nwajide, Bronze, Germany
“At 1k I knew I had to go if I wanted a chance to medal. I stepped it up and went for it. I am so happy with this result!”