Men's Quadruple Sculls (M4x) - Final

After the semifinals times showed that times would be close with three boats within half a second of each other. Lithuania’s new to this race and have been having a great regatta with Germany, who took gold at World Rowing Cup III, also looking good. The Swiss have shown some new boat speed while Estonia, Australia and Great Britain were all full of talent. Germany, who won the 2012 Olympics, got away the quickest with Estonia moving well. By the middle of the race Germany found themselves being pushed by Switzerland with just a second separating the top four boats – Australia and Estonia part of the leading mix.

The ratings now started to rise. Germany, with Hans Gruhne in stroke seat, was looking good going from a 38 stroke rate to 41. Australia tried to catch them and got as high as 43, while Estonia, featuring Olympic medallist from 2008 Tonu Endrekson, hit a stroke rate of 43 to pull into third. The order was decided – Germany was ecstatic, Australia looked pleased and there were big smiles all around for the Estonians.

Results: GER, AUS, EST, GBR, SUI, LTU

Karl Schulze (b) – GER – gold
“This was really fun, but a bit too long because of the head wind. We had a super finish. Our goal was to win gold, we had to beat ourselves.”

Cameron Girdlestone (3) – AUS – silver  
“It has been a long time to win this medal. We had some good things this week and we just put everything together today.”

Allar Raja (2) – EST – silver  
“The semi felt amazing, but today I don’t realise it yet. We changed our race plan during the day and the finish was very good.”