Junior Women’s Eight (JW8+) – Final

A–Final

The reigning junior champions, the Czech Republic race in a preliminary race earlier in the week and finished first and set a new junior World Best Time. Today they lined up to race for the medals. The Czech crew got into their stride the quickest and hit the first 500m marker in first with Germany the closest threat. The Czech eight then took nearly a full boat-length lead with Romania, Germany and the United States neck-and-neck for second. Only Italy was off the pace.

A third 500 push by Romania got them closer to the Czech crew with the United States matching their speed. The Czech boat has two returners from last year’s winning boat and they continued to lead this field home. Their coxswain Lucie Novakova took the stroke rate to 38 with Romania and the United States fighting for silver. Gold to the Czech Republic, silver to the United States and bronze to Romania.

Results: CZE, USA, ROU, GER, ITA

Valentyna Kolarova (s) Czech Republic, gold
“It is a great feeling, the best in the world. I am speechless.”

Azja Czajkowski, United States of America, silver
“I think what helped us the most is how much trust we all have in each other. Even when we were down off the start, we knew we could do it with how much we trust each other.”

Iuliana Timoc (s), Victoria-Stefania Petreanu (c), Romania, bronze
“From the first stroke to the last, it was a very hard race. We had great opponents but we’re so happy with bronze.”

Re-watch the race here