Men’s Pair (M2-) – Final

This anticipated race for the Sinkovic brothers opened with winner of the second semifinal, James Hunter and Thomas Murray of New Zealand One. Hunter and Murray had just a squidgen of an advantage with barely half a second separating the top five boats. Then Hunter and Murray was able to break away by a second by holding 39 strokes per minute. Stroking the New Zealand boat, Hunter comes from the lightweight men’s four and he is known for his ability to rate high. New Zealand still had the lead at the half way point with pain showing on the faces of Martin and Valent Sinkovic.

The final sprint had begun and Croatia was giving it their all. They have been used to leading from start to finish in their men’s double Olympic Champion boat and they were at 42 as the went after New Zealand. Then with 50 m left to row Croatia took a bad stroke. It must have frazzled them just slightly as they continued to change. Hunter and Murray had won. Winner of World Rowing Cup II, France’s Valentin and Theophile Onfroy came through in third.

Results: NZL1, CRO, FRA1, ROU1, NED, ESP

Thomas Murray (b), New Zealand, gold
“Today we had a plan which we executed. We expected the Sinkovic brothers to sprint toward the end, but we had planned for this.”

Valent Sinkovic (s), Croatia, silver
“It was a fun race, we didn’t expect New Zealand to be so fast at the start. We have to congratulate them about their race. At 1000m we said that we had to push much more. It was good until the last 100m when I caught a crab. It feels different to race from behind, we still have a long training summer to go to try to beat them in Florida.”

Theophile Onfroy (s), France, bronze
“We are very happy about our performance today as the first races here were not so good for us. During the race we pushed to win the world cup, we are very proud of this. Let’s not forget that Italy and Serbia are still missing.”

B-final

Timothy Clarke and Thomas Ford of Great Britain followed the British way of having a very fast start. But the margins remained tight and the four other boats were very much on the pace. Belarus’s Dzimitry Furman and Siarhei Vladzko then pushed out in front and rating 41 then 42 they charged for the finish line. Clarke and Ford was also sprinting to hold off the Czech Republic. Furman and Vladzko had got there first.

Results: BLR, GBR, CZE, FRA2, CAN