German-British men's eight rivalry alive in Netz Cup

Formerly known as the E.ON Hanse Canal Cup, the Netz Cup, an approved FISA event, sees Germany invite men’s eights to race on the Kiel Canal over a 12.7km distance. As well as Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States were invited to race.

This is the 15th time for the Netz Cup with Germany having won 11 times. Great Britain’s win is the first loss for Germany since 2010. Racing took place in near perfect conditions of flat water and almost no wind. Germany began in front and stayed there for the first half of the race before being rowed down by Great Britain. At the finish, Great Britain’s lead over Germany was 18 seconds with the Netherlands next, a further five seconds back and the United States came through in fourth.

The United States has competed at all of the Canal Cup regattas, making it a regular post-World Championships trip, and they arrived in Rendsburg directly from racing at the championships in Aiguebelette, France. The United States has won the cup just once.

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Apart from the feature attraction, the men’s eight long distance race, on the Friday night prior, the crews did a 500m indoor rowing sprint race. Germany finished first in this with an average split time of 1:20.1. Great Britain was in second with 1:20.5 and the United States third with 1:21.4.

Included in the regatta was a 270m single sculling sprint race with Cuba’s Angel Fournier Rodriguez  racing Lars Hartig of Germany in the two boat final. Fournier won. The B-final was between Time Ole Naske of Germany and Damir Martin of Croatia. The duo were neck-and-neck with Ole Naske finishing first by a fraction of a second. Both Fournier and Martin raced in the final of the men’s single sculls at the 2015 World Rowing Championships.

The men’s eight also had a 270m sprint race. Held in downtown Hamburg on the Binnenalster lake, the race has been named the HanseWerk AlsterCup. Germany came through to the final to face off against the United States in the two-boat final. Germany won by just over a second. In the B-final the Netherlands was first over Great Britain.

Teams

Great Britain
1: John Collins
2: Will Satch
3: Will Warr
4: Paul Bennett
5: Ollie Cook
6: Alex Gregory
7: Pete Reed
8: Constantine Louloudis
cox: Henry Fieldman

Germany
1: Maximilian Munski
2: Malte Jakschik
3: Eric Johannesen
4: Maximilian Reinelt
5: Anton Braun
6: Felix Drahotta
7: Richard Schmidt
8: Hannes Ocik
cox: Martin Sauer

Netherlands
1: Tim Heijbrock
2: Ruben Knab
3: Vincent van der Want
4: Simon Jaarsma van Dorp
5: Dirk Uittenbogaard
6: Tone Wieten
7: Mechiel Versluis
8: Björn van den Ende
cox: Tim van den Ende

United States
1: Anthony Fahden
2: Mike Gennaro
3: Dariush Tim Aghai
4: Tom Dethlefs
5: Kaess Smit
6: Austin Hack
7: Alex Karwoski
8: Seth Weil
cox: Sam Ojserkis