24 Jun 2018
Men’s Pair (M2-) – Final
A-Final
France’s Onfroy twins took the early lead. Valentin and Theophile Onfroy of France One finished fourth at last year’s World Rowing Championships and they were doing their best today. Then the Czech Republic’s crew of Lukas Hellesic and Jakub Podrazil moved out in front. This young crew maintained the lead through the middle of the race with the Onfroy’s chasing hard. This left winners of World Rowing Cup I, Croatia, back in third. But then the final sprint came into view and Valent and Martin Sinkovic charged. Could they close the gap on the Czechs. Hellesic and Podrazil finished with silver at the last World Cup. Today they reversed the order.
The Czechs held off Croatia who got the better of France.
Results: CZE, CRO1, FRA1, BLR, GBR2, HUN
Lukas Helesic (b), Czech Republic, gold
“That was fantastic, we wanted to have a good start but we knew we need to save energy for the finish and so we tried to relax and really push hard. We are quite surprised to have beaten the Croatians, it’s truly fantastic.”
Martin Sinkovic (b), Croatia, silver
“We expected to be first today but we knew the Czechs were fast and it would be tough. Obviously there is more work to do so congratulations to the Czechs, they were simply better today”
Theophile Onfroy (s), France, bronze
“Today was rather hard, we stayed with the Czechs a long time but didn’t have enough juice at the end. We’re looking forward to the next World Cup as our goal this season is just to improve.”
B-final
Local favourites, Austria One of Christoph Seifriederger and Ferdinand Querfeld had the lead at the half way point after an early lead by Germany One. Austria was one of the fastest boats from yesterday’s semifinals so they had gained a centre lane. Germany then did a 40 stroke rate push. Austria One had no response. Then Brazil, who raced in the lightweight pair yesterday, were picking up the pace. Germany held off Austria who had gone to 41 to finish first.
Results: GER1, AUT1, UKR2, BRA, NED, FRA2