Women’s Double Sculls (W2x) – Finals

A-Final

Romania’s crew of Nicoleta-Ancuta Bodnar and Simona Radis had the fastest qualifying time coming into this race from yesterday’s semifinals. Germany won their semifinal and they met Romania today. Germany (Leonie Menzel and Carlotta Nwajide) got away the quickest and were the first to get to the 500m mark. This put Romania into second with the Lithuanian World Champions back in fourth behind Belarus. Belarus raced in the final at last month’s World Rowing Cup and are the only crew here to race at the World Cup.

Germany continued to lead Romania who had upped their stroke rate to 38 but they had not closed the gap on Germany. Then Menzel and Nwajide managed to get a slight lead over Romania with Belarus and Italy going neck and neck for the bronze medal. Italy then got just ahead of Belarus. The Belarusian crew tried to react back, but it looked as if nothing could stop Italy. Buttignon and Gobbi took their rating above 40 and were now close to Romania. This finish line had arrived. Germany had won. Romania had held off Italy.

Results: GER, ROU, ITA, BLR, LTU, GRE

Stefania Buttignon (b), Italy, Bronze
“I really enjoyed that race. Our primary focus was to come here and get a medal. We had good speed so we are looking forward to the future.”

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B-final

Maintaining the lead was Beeres and Youssifou of the Netherlands. They come to this race having been in the gold medal women’s eight at World Rowing Cup I last month. They kept ahead of France’s Lefebvre and Ravera-Scaramozzino. The French are the reigning European Champions, but being in the B-final means they have no chance to defend this title. The French went to 37 strokes per minute to try and get into the lead in the last 200m of the race. The Dutch held them off.

Results: NED, FRA, GBR, UKR, RUS, POL