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A–Final

The fastest from the heats on Friday was Germany. They have been going through a selection process which has seen swapping of rowers between the quad and double. Today must be a consolidation day to help decide the crew for the 2018 World Rowing Championships. China, who took silver at World Rowing Cup II, looked to be the closest challengers as they had won their heat on Friday.

Germany, the current Olympic Champions in this boat class, got away quickly at the start taking their stroke rate over 40 with China rather slow at the start. Poland was the closest challenger. Poland has a stable crew but were unlucky at World Rowing Cup II to finish in sixth. Today they held onto their second place through the middle of the race while keeping an eye on China. In the final sprint Germany went to 37 with Poland holding on at 36 as the Netherlands gave it their all. The Dutch just scraped into the medals ahead of China.

Results: GER1, POL, NED, CHN, GER2, AUS1

Carlotta Nwajide, Germany, gold
“It went well right off the start. Our plan was really for the second part for the race as we weren’t expecting the first half to go so well but it was really good. The first half went better than we thought so the second half we were just trying to hold onto the lead until the end.”

Agnieszka Kobus-Zawojska (b), Poland, silver
“For me that was the hardest race ever and obviously Germany were very good. We’re very happy as in Linz we came sixth so this has been quite the improvement.”

Nicole Beukers (s), Netherlands, bronze
“It was a really fun race as we had a good start and I felt well connected throughout. We pushed hard through the middle and throughout. To be honest our plan was just to go! We’ll now start to prepare for the Europeans as we need to make a few changes.”

Re-watch the footage here