Men's Quadruple Sculls (M4x) - Final

Norway and Lithuania won their respective heats two days ago and this enabled them to miss the repechage. These two crews met for the first time today with multiple Olympic medallist, Olaf Tufte sitting in stroke seat for Norway. Lithuania finished second at the European Rowing Championships and earlier this month they won at World Rowing Cup I. Coming through the repechage, Italy looked strong in the early phase of this race. But it was Great Britain that made it to the first marker in the lead. Italy then began to slip as Lithuania moved through into the lead with Great Britain doing their best to hold the pace.

From the back of the field, Norway took the stroke rate up and really began to move. The final sprint had already come into view. Had Norway left it too late? In the last 200m Lithuania continued to lead and they got to the line first with Poland and Great Britain going neck and neck for silver. Poland had got there first with Italy flying through to take the bronze. What a sprint!

Results: LTU, POL, ITA, GBR, NED, NOR

Rolandas Mascinskas, Lithuania, gold
“It was a tough race. We had two weeks practice since Belgrade. Compared to last year we changed the team a bit, we have good erg scores. We are very powerful. This European win was the objective and we reached it.”

Wiktor Chabel, Poland, silver

“Very tough race, particularly at 1000m, everyone was close together. Over the last 200m, I just closed my eyes and pushed as hard as I could. The boat is a new combination. We’re not sure if we’ll be together for Poznan, but we’ll see.”

Romano Battisti (b), Italy, bronze

“It was a very close race from the beginning. In the middle we tried to attack Lithuania, but the finish was very close. We managed to get the bronze.”

B-final

The Olympic bronze medallists, Estonia was the fastest boat out of yesterday’s repechages. Estonia looked calm as they moved out ahead of the rest of the field. But margins were very tight with Olympic Champions, Germany and Ukraine both very much on the pace. Then Estonia manged to push away through the middle of the race and in the final sprint they maintained the edge over Germany.

Results: EST, GER, UKR, RUS, CZE, ROU