Men’s Eight (M8+) – Final

A-Final

Re-watch the live footage here

A test race yesterday saw Germany win by a small margin over Great Britain. Russia took off at 50 strokes per minute with Romania holding 46. The lower rating Germany then pushed out into the lead. Germany are the World Champions in this boat class and also have silver from the Rio Olympics. Their crew is relatively stable with Martin Sauer their coxswain since 2007.

Romania went after Germany with Great Britain right on the pace. These three boats crossed the middle of the race at the head of the field with Poland also within a challenging position. The final sprint had not come into view and already Romania was at 44. But Great Britain was able to overtake Romania who then dropped to 43. In the final sprint Germany was ahead of Great Britain and moving away from Romania. British stroke Will Satch took the stroke rate up, Germany reacted by going to 42 and they crossed the line first. The British were second and Romania held on to third.

Results: GER, GBR, ROU, POL, CHN, RUS

Jakob Schneider, Germany, Gold
“We had a really good start and had one length by the 1000m mark. We knew that in the second half GB is always fast but when you have a length in the eight you know you can bring it home.”

Mohamed Sbihi, Great Britain, Silver
“This is a good start, a little bit disappointed in the performance but Germany are very experienced. This is a long-term project and we’ll come back stronger.”

Adrian Munteanu (c), Romania, Bronze
“We had a really good race but Germany and GB are always very strong. We will be racing the eight again and are planning on going to Henley.”