Women’s Quadruple Sculls (BW4x) – Final

The times in the heats earlier this week indicated that Great Britain would be the crew to beat. They met winner of the other heat, Germany for the first time today. But they were up against Australia who had three members of their crew taking bronze at the senior World Rowing Cup earlier this month. Also  Romania who finished fifth in the boat class last year. The United States had the fastest pace in the opening stroke of the race before Great Britain picked up their rhythm and moved up. Great Britain’s Thornton, Edwards, Budgett and Glover then moved into the lead and never looked back. Germany and Australia were in a close battle for second with Romania almost out of striking distance in fourth.

Coming into the close of the race Great Britain still had the lead with Australia trying to close on the gold medal spot. Germany moved with them making the real race for silver. Great Britain crossed the line in gold. Australia just snuck ahead to take silver.

Results: GBR, AUS, GER, ROU, NED, USA

Anna Thornton (b), Great Britain, gold
“We had a really last minute change of line-up. We rowed 4km in the boat and it really clicked. We stuck to our plan and got a length early, we sat on our pace throughout.”

Rowena Meredith, Australia, silver
“I don’t think we could have done much more today. We had 10 days together as a whole crew in this new line-up. It’s very different racing here with the water, it’s very fast and there is a little tail wind as well.”

Tina Christmann (b), Germany, bronze
“We had an almost perfect start. We took our speed off the GB boat to push us along. We tried to row away from the field with 20 hard strokes. From 700m to go we took the rate up and closed our eyes. I’ve never been so destroyed after a race.” 

B-final

The French included two bronze medallists from last year and they must have not been too happy to be in the b-final. But the made the best of it by leading at the start over Poland. Poland was the under-23 World Champions last year but with a different crew. This race was all about France and they maintained open water for the majority of the race despite a big finishing push by New Zealand which saw them rating 40 strokes per minute.

Results: FRA, NZL, POL