Women’s Pair (W2-) – Final

A cheer went up when the 12 rowers left the starting blocks. In the centre lane was Megan Kalmoe and Tracy Eisser of the United States. Next to them was Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler of New Zealand. The New Zealanders potentially had the upper hand having beaten the Americans at World Rowing Cup III. But that was back in July and since then they haven’t raced. In the heats earlier in the week both NZ and US had won their respective heats. Today Prendergast and Gowler took an early lead. Denmark was in second. The Danes medalled at the Rio Olympics with Hedvig Rasmussen in the boat. Rasmussen is now rowing with Christina Johansen and they took European silver this year. The US were now in third and right on the Danish coat tails. Coming through to the end New Zealand remained in the lead rating 35. The United States was at 41 and getting in front of Denmark. The Danes couldn’t hold off the US. New Zealand remained absolutely in control to win and become World Champions.

Results: NZL, USA, DEN, GBR, ESP, GER

Kerri Gowler (s), New Zealand, gold
“It’s been a long week of nerves, so we’re really pleased to have got this today. We thought it might come down to a sprint at the end, so we went out hard and tried to complete.”

Megan Kalmoe (b), United States of America, silver
“It was really fun to come and race the Danes again after Lucerne, although the race was behind New Zealand. Its great to race here in front of this amazing crowd.”

Hedvig Rasmussen (b), Denmark, bronze
“We raced really comfortably throughout but we knew from the heat that the USA had a really good last 500m. We’re a really new crew, we’ve only been together for 6 months since Lucerne.”

B-final

Italy’s Ilaria Broggini and Veronica Calabrese got out very quickly with Ireland chasing hard. These two boats went neck and neck at the head of the field. Ireland had a short period at the front while going through the middle of the race. But Broggini and Calabrese fought back to finish first.

Results: ITA, IRL, SRB, CHN, MEX