Men’s Pair (M2-) – Finals

A-Final

Croatia had the fastest time from yesterday’s semifinals and after coming second at World Rowing Cup I last month they must have been desperate for a win today. At the start it was Serbia that flew out at the start – ah but they false started. The boats came back into the blocks. Everyone paused before starting and they all went away clean. Serbia went off at 48 strokes per minute and went crooked. This gave the Sinkovic brothers of Croatia a chance to get a slight lead and get to the first 500m marker in the lead and in a flying time of 1:32.

The Sinkovics left a practical line form behind them with Serbia’s Martin Mackovic and Milos Vasic trying really hard to break free and close on Croatia. At the half way point Croatia had more than a boat length lead and they kept at 40 strokes per minute speed. Romania was moving very well and had got ahead of Serbia. Serbia and Romania (Cozmiuc and Tudosa) and they went head-to-head into the final sprint. Serbia went to 44 strokes per minute with Romania going to 43. This dropped Spain who couldn’t handle the heat. But Spain had a great sprint and moved and moved some more. Serbia had missed out and given up. Spain have the bronze medal.  

Results: CRO, ROU, ESP, ITA, CZE, SRB

Valent Sinkovic (s), Croatia, Gold
“It’s a great feeling! One length win felt quite comfortable and it was the first time for us to be able to defend our title. We suffered in the last 200 meters a little bit but it was a great race!”

Ciprian Tudosa (s), Romania, Silver
“It was a tough race. Croatia had the lead at 1000 meters so we tried to close the gap but we couldn’t. We’re really happy with our result and so we’ll be staying in the pair.”

Javier Garcia Ordonez (s), Spain, Bronze,
“It was a very hard race! In the last 500 meters, we were able to bring up the rate and speed to come for the bronze medal.”

Click here for the final race

B-final

The European silver medallists from last year, the Onfroy brothers from France had the lead at the start before Belarus took over the lead. Dzmitry Furman and Siarhei Valadzko of Belarus raced in the World Rowing Cup I last month where they raced in the A-final. They held the lead through to the end with Great Britain pushing through into second.

Results: BLR, GBR, FRA, GER, GRE, RUS