Men's Eight (M8+) - Final

At the European Championships Olympic Champions Germany had beaten World Champions Great Britain. They were seeded in separate heats two days ago and each won their respective heat with Germany recording a slightly faster time. The Germans and Great Britain met again today in the last race of the regatta.

The race opened with Germany 1 leading Poland. Germany also had a second crew qualify for this race – their under-23 boat racing as Germany 2. Going through the middle of the race Germany had the edge over Great Britain who had moved up alongside. The British were now really moving. Could Germany hold them off?  Both Germany and Great Britain were rating 39 and matching each other stroke for stroke. Great Britain had just a smidgen more power. The British had taken gold. Germany earn silver and the United States overtook New Zealand to take bronze.

Results: GBR, GER1, USA, NZL, POL, GER2

Alex Gregory (6) – GBR – gold

“We’ve been working on a lot of things since European Championships, we’ve been more efficient. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a good race. I saw George in front of me and just followed him and I had great guys behind me. There is still more to come in the next weeks but we are very pleased with this result today.”

Felix Drahotta (6) – GER1 – silver

“It was a tough race, but we applied the tactic that we had discussed. It was a very good race, but we still need to work better together to have more unity in the boat.”

Austin Hack (stroke) – USA – bronze

“We wanted to go through this race really fast and we managed to do that so we are happy. We have a lot of young people in the boat so we have a great potential.”

B-final

France missed out on the A-final through yesterday’s repechage by one place and so it was not surprising to see them in the lead of today’s B-final. The French led from start to finish and crossed the line rating 40 strokes per minute.

Results:  FRA, ITA2, CHN