Three medals for GB Junior crews in Brandenburg

August 6, 2005

17 of Great Britain’s junior rowers will fly home from the World Junior Championships in Brandenburg tomorrow with medals including the whole of the women’s squad that competed here. On a blustery finals day Germany and Romania were the dominant nations but GB’s three bronze medals were very creditable indeed.

After winning the semi-final yesterday the men’s four were looking to be contending for gold but on the day the more experienced Romanian and German crews were just a little too good with just two tenth of a second separating those nations for gold and silver, Britain took a strong bronze three quarters of a length behind.

In the women’s quad GB is establishing something of a medal winning tradition – this was our first ever junior medal in this discipline. Germany had always looked the best bet for gold and they duly won with Belarus in silver and the GB quad rowing away from the rest of the field in the second half to take a well deserved bronze.

Britain had not entered a junior women’s eight since 2000 but this crew had shown its pedigree throughout the regatta and in a thrilling race with five crews in the medal hunt with 500m to go the GB eight stormed through USA to put themselves in third position just a third of a length behind the tiring Romanians who look silver while Germany took gold.

The three other GB crews racing today also performed with credit. The men’s quad, very much a new combination in this tough event, took a strong fifth place while the men’s coxed four produced an excellent row to win the B Final, gaining seventh position overall. The men’s eight did not perform to their best in yesterday’s semi-final but made some amends today with a far stronger performance in the B Final to finish second in eighth place overall.

RESULTS

FINAL B
JM4+
1.   GBR    6:34.16
2.   ROM
3.   UKR
4.   RSA
5.   RUS
6.   ESP

JM8+
1.   GRE    5:56.18
2.   GBR    5:57.81
3.   BLR
4.   ESP
5.   CZE
6.   ITA

FINAL A
JM4-
1.   ROM    6:17.24
2.   GER    6:17.47
3.   GBR    6:20.37   Hoare/MacLeod/Lucy/Swales
4.   CRO
5.   SCG
6.   ITA

JW4x
1.   GER   6:44.96
2.   BLR    6:47.48
3.   GBR    6:51.22   Cotterell/Round/Stiller/Jus-Burke
4.   ITA
5.   POL
6.   FRA

JM4x
1.   ITA   6:07.32
2.   GER
3.   UKR
4.   SLO
5.   GBR   Beech/Lucas/Laughton/Duggan
6.   RUS

JW8+
1.   GER    6:46.69
2.   ROM    6:48.72
3.   GBR    6:50.94 Connell/Jefferies/Bryant/Blevins/Crombie/Graham/McDowall/
       Fletcher/De Toledo
4.   USA
5.   RUS
6.   CZE