Men’s Double Sculls (M2x) – Finals

A-Final

It was 53 strokes per minute for the local Swiss crew of Roman Roeoesli and Barnabe Delarze at the start of the race. But the fastest movers were the Dutch crew of Amos Keijser and Nicolas van Sprang. Poland recorded the fastest time in the semifinals and they sat in third. A piece in the second 500 by Zietarski and Baranski of Poland gave them the lead by the half way point. This race had attracted a lot of interest as no crew has been the stand-out crew lately. The World Champions, France sat at the back of the field and had only just scraped through to this final.

Poland, meanwhile, continued to move out at the front of the field. The Dutch was attacking for the lead as Romania and Switzerland and Great Britain all charged for the line. Only two seconds separated all of these top five crews. Switzerland then went to 42 and were moving on Poland. The British was fighting with Romania. Too close to call. Poland had won by a tiny margin. The Swiss took second and Romania bronze. Only a second separated the top four crews.

Results: POL, SUI, ROU, GBR, NED, FRA

Fabian Baranski (s), Poland, Gold
“I’m so happy, it was a great race for us! European Rowing Championships is our first competition together so to win here is great!”

Roman Roeoesli (s), Switzerland, Silver
“When we crossed the line we thought we had won, so we celebrated a little too early. Then we found out we were second. The race went to plan. We had a good start and a solid 1000m. I think our last 500m was the fastest.”

Marian-Florian Enache (s), Romania, Bronze
“The race was amazing. It happened just like we practiced in training.”

Click here for the full race video

B-final

Germany missed out on the A-final by just two seconds in yesterday’s semifinals and they led the way today. Stephan Krueger and Tim Ole Naske of Germany are in their first season together and are likely to improve as the season advances. The stayed ahead of Ireland and then Lithuania who had moved up from the back of the field. Both boats sprinted with Germany winning on the final stroke by just 0.14 of a second.

Results: GER, LTU, ITA, IRL, BLR, ESP