Six Nations Claim World Rowing U23 Championship Titles in St. Catherine’s
On day five of the combined World Rowing Senior, U23 and U19 Championships in St Catharines, Canada, the first eight sets of medals were awarded in the U23 boat classes.
The morning session saw the last of the U19 heats and preliminary races with a series of repechages in the afternoon. Medal finals for the U19s will all take place on the last day of competition, Sunday 25 August.
After the conclusion of the U19 racing for the day, a full house at the Craig Swayze Memorial Grandstand were treated to eight fantastic finals in the U23 boat classes in which six nations won World U23 Championship titles and two World Championship Best Times were broken.
New Zealand was the first nation to pick up a gold medal when they beat USA to the line in the women’s coxed four but there was redemption for the USA in the U23 men’s coxed four straight after when they prevented Italy from defending their title.
The lightweight men’s pair saw a fantastic gold for Manuel Fernandez Antri and Felipe Guerra from Chile while Germany beat host nation Canada in both the lightweight women’s and men’s quadruple sculls.
Great Britain took gold in the U23 women’s pair when Anna Grace and Holly Youd got out fast at 45 strokes per minute, established an early lead and maintained that position throughout. Spain took silver while France, who were in fifth with less than 500m to go, came through to claim bronze.
It was a second gold medal of the day for New Zealand when Joshua Vodanovich and Oliver Welch held off the challenge from Germany’s Tobias Stangemann and Johannes Benien throughout the 2,000m course. The crews were never separated by more than a second and the intensity of the race allowed New Zealand to set a new World Championship Best Time by 0.29 seconds when they crossed the line 0.92 seconds ahead of Germany.
The last race of the day was the U23 women’s quadruple sculls. Despite a very fast start from Poland, defending champions Romania drew exactly level at 1,000m and then started to move away. Romania held on to the lead to claim gold, retaining the World Champion title and their incredible sprint to the line allowed them to claim a new World Championship Best Time, beating the previous time by 2.33 seconds. Poland took the silver while Great Britain held off a challenge from Germany to claim bronze.
There’s plenty more action to come in St Catharines with three days of racing still to be completed. Friday’s schedule, which starts at 09:30 EST will conclude with the medal races in the remaining 13 U23 boat classes, which will start at 14:00 local time.
For start lists, race reports, results and photos go to www.worldrowing.com
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