24 Jun 2018
Men’s Four (M4-) – Final
A-Final
The World Champions, Australia sat in the middle of the field that included two boats that raced in the A-final of the World Rowing Cup earlier this month – Great Britain Two and Germany. Great Britain One, in an outside lane, was a new combination. Poland raced in the eight at World Rowing Cup I and Romania was seventh at that regatta. Australia went away at a 50 stroke rate with Romania at 49. And Romania was moving quicker. But Australia got to the 500m mark first. Hill, Hargreaves, Turrin and Hicks of Australia now led the charge.
The margins were tight with just two seconds separating the field as they headed to the middle of the race mark. Then Australia broke away. An unbelievable charge gave them a full boat length over Romania with Germany, Poland, Great Britain One and Great Britain Two in a virtual line together. Germany, stroked by the tall Felix Drahotta, then managed to get a slight advantage and into the bronze spot. Great Britain Two went to 42, but Germany held them off.
Results: AUS, ROU, GER, GBR2, GBR1, POL
Jack Hargreaves, Australia, gold
“That wasn’t our greatest race but it’s a really good starting point. We hope to continue our winner streak, we’ve never won at Lucerne so we hope to now turn that around.”
Cosmin Pascari, Romania, silver
“This race was very important to us, after the semi-finals we thought we had a very good shot at first. All the other boats put up a very good race. We don’t know about Lucerne but we know we will definitely be at the U23s.”
Felix Brummel (b), Germany, bronze
“We expected a hard race after seeing some really close times yesterday. We were very confident at the start and settled into a good rate. Australia and Romania are quite fast so it was tough competition.”