Lightweight Men’s Double Sculls (LM2x) – Final

France and Italy won their respective semifinals yesterday in practically identical times. They faced each other today taking up the two centre lanes. The Olympic Champions, France’s Pierre Houin and Jeremie Azou got away the quickest as this unbeaten crew like to lead from start to finish. Italy’s Stefano Oppo and Pietro Ruta moved with them and these two crews looked like they would break away from the pack. Azou and Houin kept their stroke rate high and they were still at 41 stokes per minute going through the second 500. Oppo and Ruta, who finished third at this year’s European Championships, were rating lower but still within striking distance of the French. Meanwhile Olympic silver medallists, Ireland’s Gary and Paul O’Donovan were moving through into third. The O’Donovan brothers had to race a repechage to get to this final and they were now trying to close on Italy.

As the final 500m came into view France was at 38 and holding the lead. Italy moved to 41 and Ireland was at 39 then 40. Azou and Houin had won and finished just three seconds outside of the World Cup Best Time. Ruta and Oppo held on to second and the O’Donovan’s had earned a bronze.

Results: FRA, ITA, IRL, BEL, GRE, CZE

Jeremie Azou (s), France, gold
“It was a very good race. We are stroking really high, 39-40 for the race. This is really our way to race. It’s really exciting to find our way and to get better and better.”

Stefano Oppo (b), Italy, silver
“We tried to stay behind the France, we attacked them but they could answer every time. We are very satisfied with a silver medal. Our technique is really uniform, we are very happy.”

Paul O’Donovan (s), Ireland, bronze
“That was the hardest race to date. We were a bit disappointed as we only had two races last time and we had four this weekend so we got to stretch our legs a bit. We have some ground to make up on French and we’ll go back with our coach and talk about that.”

B-final

Russia has been showing a lot of fast starts today and the lightweight double was no exception as Anton Kuranov and Nazar Lifshitc of Russia took off in the lead. But Japan Two of Yuki Ikeda and Kakeru Sato were unrelenting and held on to the Russians. Then Great Britain One came storming down the outside and at the line Samuel Mottram and Jamie Copus had finished first by just 0.10 of a second. Poland did not start for medical reasons.

Results: GBR1, RUS, JPN2, DEN, CAN2