Men’s Double Sculls (M2x) – Final

New Zealand won at last month’s World Rowing Cup and they come into this final with the third fastest qualifying time from yesterday’s semifinals. Today they were up against the fastest qualifiers, Poland’s Miroslaw Zietarski and Mateusz Biskup and European Champions, Filippo Mondelli and Luca Rambaldi. John Storey and Christopher Harris of New Zealand got away the quickest and ‘settled’ at a very high 40 stroke rate pace. This got them to the first 500m mark in the lead with Poland and Italy the closest challengers. Story and Harris continued to hold a punishing 40 into the second 500m but Zietarski and Biskup were boldly holding on. This Polish duo come out of their country’s quad and it looks to be serving them well.

At the 1500m point Storey and Harris still held the lead, but Poland and Italy was less than a second back. These three boats were going for it. Poland went to 41, New Zealand was at 42, Italy was trying to get into the high 30s. New Zealand had done it finishing just seven seconds outside of the World Cup Best Time.

Results: NZL, POL, ITA, SUI, BLR, ARG

John Storey (b), New Zealand, gold
“Tough race today, couldn’t get rid of the others. We took the rate up and up, but they still kept with us. It feels good to win today.”

Mateusz Biskup (s), Poland, silver
“It was a tough race, we are preparing for the world champs. It is good to check out where we are. It is only our second start together, we are really happy.”

Luca Rambaldi (s), Italy, bronze
“The race was very strong. There were three boats in front, three behind. We gave everything to stay ahead. We were fighting against each other, it was really close. In the end we pushed harder, but we switched off in the last 50m, we saw all black.”

B-final

Romania only just missed out on making the a-final in yesterday’s semifinals and they much have been the favourites to do well today. But it was Matthew Buie and Conlin McCabe of Canada that absolutely dominated the race. This is the first international race for this duo who have come together for 2017. Germany One followed in second but could do nothing to close the gap on the flying Canadians. Canada won by eight seconds. Norway had pulled out of this race for medical reasons.

Results: CAN, LTU, GER1, AUS, ROU