Women's Pair (W2-) - Final

Denmark had the fastest time in the heats two days ago. Today they met winners of the other heat and the World Rowing Cup I winners, Great Britain. Hedvig Rasmussen of Denmark got bronze in this boat class in Rio and she has a new teammate in Christina Johansen. The British duo of Karen Bennett and Holly Norton is a new combination for 2017. The British pair was the first to show, but it was Romania who got to the first 500m mark the fastest. Romania won the repechage yesterday and they will also be racing in the women’s eight later today.

Romania’s Madalina Beres and Laura Oprea rated higher than the rest of the field and remained in the lead with Denmark pushing into second. Great Britain rounded out the leading bunch as these three countries broke clean away from the rest of the field. Beres and Oprea did another push and took their rating higher and got a nice little edge over Denmark. In the final sprint Romania was still leading the field and they crossed the line first with Rasmussen and Johansen taking silver. Great Britain had to settle for bronze.

Results: ROU, DEN, GBR, ITA, FRA, ESP 

Madalina Beres (b),  Romania, gold
“We started very strong and we fought for the gold medal. We finished first place and we are very happy about it.”

Hedvig Rasmussen (b), silver, Denmark
“We are a new combination so there is still work to do on the start and finish. We are very happy about the results.”

Karen Bennett (b), Holly Norton (s), Great Britain, bronze
“That was a really tough race, we need to dig in a bit more in the middle of the race and work on being a bit smoother. We are looking to go to the World Champs, but this is a good base as it’s the next biggest race.”