Junior Women’s Quadruple Sculls (JW4x) – Final

It looked like Germany would be the crew to beat after yesterday’s semifinals and they were the fastest at the start with a 44 rating. Romania and Switzerland were the closest challengers. Then Great Britain came up to challenge Switzerland. The Swiss caught a crab in an earlier race and they must have been wary to do clean strokes in the middle of the race where water can sometimes get a bit bouncy. Romania then overtook Germany with the Germans realising that this would not be an easy race. At the half way point Romania’s crew of Rosu, Grapinoiu, Radis and Maftei were still in front and had managed to move slightly away from Germany who now were having to keep an eye on Switzerland and Great Britain.

In the final sprint it looked like gold and silver had been sorted with the British and Swiss absolutely neck-and-neck for the bronze medal. Germany went to 36 to try and catch Romania who went to 36. Switzerland was sprinting now as Germany went to 39 and nearly caught Romania, but the line came a fraction too soon. Romania had won.

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

Simona Geanina Radis, Romania, gold
“It was great! It was very hard, but we’re very happy with the results.”

Sophie Leupold, Germany, silver
“Last 250m was great. The crowd is really fantastic here. We rowed as fast as we could and in the end we didn’t know if we were first or second. We really like it here, it’s really lively.”

Eline Rol (s), Switzerland, bronze
“It was really hard because we were fighting for a long time with GB for third. We just fought until the end. I think we’ve managed a lot with this crew and we’re all just really happy.”

B-final

Russia and the Czech Republic had the fastest times from yesterday’s semifinal. Russia medalled at the European Rowing Junior Championships, while Italy in the outside lane had broken an oar in the semifinal and must want to show themselves today. The Czech’s had the lead at the start with Russia and Italy chasing hard. The Czech’s won gold in the eight last year at the junior champs and two members of that crew were racing in this boat. They were still in front as Italy took their rating up and moved into second. The Czech Republic rated 39 in the final sprint to stay ahead with Italy and Russia battling it out for second.

Results: CZE, RUS, ITA, CHN, UKR, IND