Lightweight Women’s Quadruple Sculls (LW4x) – Final

From the heats earlier in the week, Italy had the best showing. They had qualified with the fastest time and today they would meet Canada, winner of the other heat, for the first time. The Italians are also the under-23 World Champions and Italy had the fastest pace coming out at the start. Then China, who came to this final through the repechage, squeezed through into the lead. China and Italy then managed to move just a fraction away from the rest of the field. But it was still very close through the middle of the race. Only two seconds separated the top five boats at this point. All crews rated around 36-37 to hold the speed.

Italy now went to 38 coming into the final sprint as Australia and Canada started to charge. They were in the final buoys of the race as Australia continued to come overtaking China and going after Italy. Canada was neck and neck with China. Italy had taken gold. Silver went to Australia and a photo finish for third declared China the bronze medallists.

Results: ITA, AUS, CHN, CAN, GBR, JPN

Giovanna Schettino (s), Italy, gold
“Really, really happy to win today as we’re the youngest crew and we didn’t expect to do so well. I am really proud of the other girls and the team.”

Georgia Nesbitt (s), Australia, silver
“We knew the first 500m was always going to be a very tight race especially in the world championships. We just tried to be smart about our race and settled into the middle 1000m. We wanted to make sure that we made our move in the last 500m as everybody else did as well.”

Xulian Xuan (b), People’s Republic of China, bronze
“We used all our energy to get to the bronze medal over the Canadians. We are very pleased with this result. We absolutely love it here in Sarasota.”

B-final

The United States missed out only just on the A-final and they made the best effort in this B-final today by leading from start to finish by an open water margin. This gave the audience a beautiful sight to see an American crew lead by such a big amount. Vietnam was way back in second.

Results: USA, VIE, THA