23 Jun 2018
Lightweight men’s quad
A-final
Six boats lined up at the start and right on the dot, the green light signalled the beginning of the race. Germany got the best start and crossed the 500m mark with their boat in the lead. But Italy are reigning World Champions in this boat class and they would not settle for silver.
With a quick glance to the Germans, they picked up the rate and pushed into the lead. Coming through the halfway point, Italy had a solid lead with Germany and Austria trailing. Then, Australia decided they had to get back into medal contention and they put in a push. They moved on the Austrian crew.
Through the finish line Italy had sewn up the gold, and Germany looked set for silver, but what a sprint for bronze. Austria responded to the Australian challenge and then Norway came flying out of fifth to challenge for the medal as well. At the line, it was Norway ahead of Austria by just .34 of a second.
Results: ITA, GER, NOR, AUT, AUS, HUN
Matteo Mulas (s), Italy, gold
“That was really good. We said before the race to go off hard and then try to improve on this. So we pushed at 1000 meters and we were able to finish it off later on. Hoping to be at the European Championships in Glasgow.”
Moritz Moos (s), Germany, silver
“This is a young crew, we’ve only had two weekends of preparation. The time trials were very hard as there were no opponents next to us. In this race we found that we could be a little bit faster and push past Norway. We knew the Italians were super fast and they were way out in front of us since the start.”
Didrik Wie-Soltvedt (b), Norway, bronze
“The time trial was strange, we’ve never raced a time trial at this level. We put up the second best time so we knew we had a good chance for the podium. There was a good fight out there on the water, Austria put up a good fight and we weren’t sure when we crossed the line if we were third or fourth.”