Gold for GB in Singapore

Fiona Gammond and Georgia Howard-Merrill, both from Oxford, have won the women’s  pair gold at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore.

They took the title in 3:28.60 ahead of Australia in silver and Greece in bronze.

After narrowly qualifying for the final, the British duo were in an outside lane for today’s race but had the lead by the 500m mark and maintained that through the remainder with Australia and Greece chasing and challenging but ultimately unable to catch the GB combination.

Surprised at their victory after such an edgy semi-final yesterday Georgia Howard-Merrill said:  “I did not even know that we won, we’re shocked!  We did not realise that we would be that fast”.

In the equivalent men’s event Ed Nainby-Luxmoore and Caspar Jopling narrowly missed out on a medal finishing fourth in 3:09.37 in a race in which only a second separated the top five crews at the halfway point.

Eventually Slovenia emerged to take the title ahead of the world junior champions from Greece with Australia in third. 

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RESULTS
(Events featuring GB crews only. For full results
visit:  www.worldrowing.com)

OPEN

WOMEN

Pair

FINAL
1.  Georgia Howard-Merrill/Fiona Gammond (GREAT BRITAIN) 3:28.60
2.  Emma Basher/Olympia Aldersey (Australia) 3:29.34
3.  Eleni Diamanti/Lydia Ntalamagka (Greece) 3:39.37
4.  Elena Coletti/Giada Colombo (Italy) 3:30.05
5.  Ana Gigica/Madalina Buzdugan (Romania) 3:37.32
6.  Szimona Uglik/Hella Kiss (Hungary)  3:40.58

MEN

Pair

FINAL
1.  Jure Grace/Grega Domanjko (Slovenia) 3:05.65
2.  Michalis Nastopoulos/Apostolos Lampridis (Greece) 3:06.85
3.  Matthew Cochran/David Watts (Australia) 3:07.52
4.  Ed Nainby-Luxmoore/Caspar Jopling (GREAT BRITAIN) 3:09.37
5.  Nikola Simovic/Vuk Matovik (Serbia) 3:10.94
6.  Onat Kazakli/Ogeday Girisekn (Turkey) 3:16.64