Men’s Pair (BM2-) – Final

A–Final

The fastest from the semifinals was Thibaud and Guillaume Turlan of France. Today they faced the fast South African’s and were also up against Romania who won this boat class last year, albeit with a different crew. Romania’s Dumitru-Alexandru Ciobica and Florin-Sorin Lehaci come from last year’s junior team and they had the lead at the start with Greece in second.  Romania continued to lead going through the middle of the race with Greece still in second. What could France and South Africa do?

Then Charles Brittain and James Mitchell of South Africa began to move. They got into second and tried to close the gap on the Romanians. There’s a saying that it doesn’t matter where you are during the race, just where you are at the finish. Brittain and Mitchell followed that today. Going to a 40 stroke rate, the South Africans closed on Romania with every stroke in the final sprint. Meanwhile Italy was at 42 and taking on Greece who looked to have run out of steam. Brittain and Mitchell had become under-23 champions.

Results: RSA, ROU, ITA, GRE, FRA, GER

James Mitchell (s), South Africa, gold
“We stuck to the race plan today and we got into a really good tempo for the first 1500m. Credit to Romania who were doing really well. In the last 500m we tried to minimise the damage and the boat really started to move.

Florin-Sorin Lehaci (s), Romania, silver
“Great race with a good and fast start. The finish was really tough as everyone was so close but we gave everything we had and the result was better than we expected, especially as this is our first year of under 23s.”

B-final

It was a tussle at the head of the field for Great Britain and Australia with Poland doing their best to join in. The tussle saw Australia’s Andrew Judge and Joseph O’Brien show superior stamina as they were able to break free through the second half of the race.

Results: AUS, GBR, POL, BUL, LTU, TUR