Junior Men’s Pair (JM2-) – Final

As in the previous race, Romania was expected to do well. They had recorded the fastest qualifying time in the semifinals yesterday despite having to get there through a repechage. A false start by Uzbekistan brought the crews back into the blocks for a second go. Uzbekistan had the fastest start before Romania’s Stefan-Constantin Berariu and Florin-Sorin Lehaci took over in the lead with Croatia now up with Uzbekistan. Croatia’s Patrik and Anton Loncaric did a push just before the 1000m mark, but still Romania had the lead. Romania took gold at the European Rowing Junior Championships while Turkey, who was in third, took bronze at the European juniors.

Croatia tried to keep up with Romania as these two crews came into the close of the race together. The Loncaric twins went to 38 with Romania at 38, so Croatia went to 40. It was neck-and-neck so Croatia went to 44 and completely overtook Romania who couldn’t believe it and 20m from the finish the Romanian’s took the pressure off. But they had enough of a lead over Turkey to sill hold on to silver. Aydin Sahin and Isamil Ali Bekiroglu of Turkey were third.

Results: CRO, ROU, TUR, UZB, NZL, MEX

Patrik Loncaric (b), Croatia, gold
“We really enjoyed that – the last 500m we closed our eyes and sprinted. Coming into the race we knew we had a strong sprint, so we went hard in the middle to keep pace with the Romanians. We’ll still be juniors next year so we are looking to be strong for Racice.”

 Florin-Sorin Lehaci (s), Romania, silver
“We are very tired, but very happy with the result.”

 Aydin Inanc Sahin (b), Turkey, bronze
“We thought maybe we could do better. Our GPS didn’t work during the race so we couldn’t control for speed. We were hoping for first or second, but we are still happy with our result.”

B-final

Argentina’s Lautaro Barrios and Franco Calvo got away in first place. They are known as fast starters. The question was, could they maintain it. Coming from the semifinals yesterday, Italy had the fastest time and were currently back in fourth. Barrios and Calvo continued to lead through the middle of the race but with Germany right on their tails. Argentina was 14^th last year at the junior championships, so they were showing a big improvement already. Coming into the final sprint Argentina still had the lead with Italy and Germany neck-and-neck. No one could catch Barrios and Calvo. A big sprint by Austria earned them second by just 0.19 over Italy.

Results: ARG, AUT, ITA, ESP, USA, GER