Women’s Eight (W8+) – Final

A test race yesterday saw Romania romp away to a first place finish with New Zealand in second. Would the order stay the same today? New Zealand started off their 2017 season in Poznan at World Rowing Cup II last month where they won, while Romania race to gold at the European Rowing Championships. At the start Great Britain moved away the quickest with Romania the next fastest. New Zealand held on to the leading pace as the Netherlands began to slip off the back.

Romania then began to really move and by the middle of the race Romania, the Olympic bronze medallists, had grabbed the lead. Meanwhile New Zealand had got their nose ahead of Great Britain with coxswain Sam Bosworth egging his crew on. This is the first year that male coxswains can cox women’s crews (and visa versa for male crews) and Bosworth is the trendsetter. New Zealand was now neck-and-neck with Romania. Romania went to 41 strokes per minute. New Zealand was at 40. Romania was too powerful and kept ahead of New Zealand to take the gold medal.

Results: ROU, NZL, GBR, NED

Adelina Bogus, Romania, gold
“It was a hard race, really tight with the New Zealanders. We are really happy about the results. We will train hard until the world championships.”

Rebecca Scown, New Zealand, silver
“It was a good race, it wasn’t our best race. We will go back now and work toward Sarasota. New Zealand are doing really well at the moment, we’ve got a great system in place. We’ve got a lot of world champs in the system, it helps a lot.”

Katherine Douglas, Great Britain, bronze
“Romania and New Zealand are two of the best crews at the moment. We’re looking forward to going home and training towards Sarasota.”