Three more crews into World Junior finals
Three more British junior crews gained Final A places today at the World Junior Championships in Brandenburg to join the women’s eight who qualified yesterday.
The men’s four of Rollo Hoare, Alistair MacLeod, Tom Lucy and Henry Swales dominated their semi-final from the start and led all the way to win over Croatia by more than a length at the finish. The other semi-final was won by Germany with exactly the same crew that won World Junior bronze last year. All is set for an interesting fours final.
The other Final A places were won by GB’s men’s and women’s quads. The women’s crew faced an impressive quad from Germany who dominated the race, winning by 5 seconds with Great Britain second and France third. Belarus were the winners of the other semi-final.
The men’s quad was disappointed to finish third in their race behind Germany and Ukraine. The GB crew is the most experienced boat in the junior team but had a technical problem with their rudder which interfered with their steering and they will look to be challenging for a medal in tomorrow’s finals.
The men’s eight with a substitute in the bow seat through illness improved their performance from the heat but this was still not enough to finish in the top three. The GB crew was in third place at the half way mark but did not sustain this over the second half, finishing fifth and they will contend the Final B tomorrow.
The fifth crew racing today was Nick Baker in the men’s single who led is D Final all the way to win over USA and Lithuania by over two lengths.
