Men's Double Sculls (M2x) - Final

The Croatian World Champions have spent this season winning by open water margins. But in the semifinals they recorded the same finishing time as the German double of Marcel Hacker and Stephan Krueger. Hacker, 38, raced on these very waters at the 1997 World Rowing Championships, that time in a quad. The very popular Martin and Valent Sinkovic of Croatia got off to a cracking pace to get into the lead. the Sinkovic brothers are known for their gruelling training regime and they must have some of the biggest quadriceps in the business. Germany slotted into second behind Croatia, but these two leading boats had not been able to shake the rest of the field through the middle of the race. Lithuania and New Zealand were right with them.

The Sinkovics took their stroke rate to 42 and started to creep away. But now Rolandas Mascinskas and Saulius Ritter of Lithuania upped their rate to fight back. The normal Croatian winning margin was not going to happen. Meanwhile New Zealand’s Robert Manson and Chris Harris had taken their stroke rate to 42 and were attacking the bronze medal spot that was being held by Germany. The Germans responded. But with three strokes remaining Manson and Harris got their boat into the medal winning spot. Croatia’s finishing time was just over three seconds outside of the World Best Time – a great feat in these conditions. Lithuania took silver and New Zealand earned bronze.

Results: CRO, LTU, NZL, GER, AUS, FRA

Valent Sinkovic (s) – CRO – gold
“The other crews pushed more this year than last year. Next season we will train even more to be ready for the Games.”

 Saulius Ritter (s) – LTU – silver
“It was the toughest race of the season. After Chungju (universiade) we had six weeks of training, so not a lot of racing together this year. The secret of Lithuania is to fight against each other every training, and we have good coaches.”

Robert Manson (b) – NZL – bronze  
“It’s my first World Championship medal, it is unbelievable. Our goal was to row our best race today, we had no expectations to medal.”