2011's first Junior World Rowing Champions were crowned today on the first day of A finals at Dorney Lake, Eton in Great Britain, the Olympic regatta course for the 2012 Games in London.
Today's finals included the men's and women's four, the men's coxed four, the women's pair, the women's quadruple sculls and the men's eight.
The first gold medal of the regatta went to the United States women's four. This crew included Lucy Grinalds who is at her fourth junior worlds. Last year she took silver in this event and now she adds gold to her collection.
Results: USA, GBR, NZL, ITA, GER, CAN
Australia bring home gold in the Men's Coxed Four ahead of New Zealand and Italy. The latter had been fastest qualifiers for this race, but Australia shot out from the starting blocks and never looked back followed by a battle for silver and gold for the runners up.
Results: AUS, NZL, ITA, UKR, GER, GBR
The women's pair was dominated by a loudly supported Italian crew carried by the crowds to a 4 second lead over the line. They are seconded by Germany and Greece who held off Romania in a 37 rate finish.
Results: ITA, GER, GRE, ROU, FRA, USA
Maximillian Johanning, Johannes Weissenfeld, Malte Jakschik, and Lukas Frederick Mueller of Germany simply dominated the men's four, starting out ahead and staying there the whole way. Spain, despite a slow start upped their stroke rate when they needed to and were propelled to second place thanks to a very strong finish catching out a solid Romanian crew who had to settle for bronze.
Results; GER, ESP, ROU, BLR, SRB, CRO
Germany defended their championship title from 2010, starting out in a hot race with Romania. But Germany, having crossed the line three seconds ahead of the rest of the field, left the Nethelands, USA and Romania to battle it out for the remaining two medals. In a very close finish, the Netherlands clinched gold, and Romania, pushing USA into fourth position, take bronze.
Results: GER, NED, ROU, USA, BLR, ITA
The day ended with the men's eight, rowing's flagship event. The eights was taken by an ectsatic Italian crew, coxed by Enrico d'Anellio. Home crew Great Britain bring home silver in a long battle with Germany who row in third.
Results: ITA, GBR, GER, ESP, USA, CZE
Earlier in the day six semifinal events took place with crews racing to qualify for Sunday's finals. The finish line judges had their work cut out for them as race after race ended with excruciatingly tight finishes and fast times in the tailwind, flat water conditions. One of the tightest races was the second semifinal in the men's single sculls. All six boats in this race remained tightly packed throughout the race and it took a final dash to the line for Paul O'Donovan of Ireland to secure the first place. In the women's single sculls Ireland prevailed again with Holly Nixon surprising the punters with her fast finishing time. Germany's two single scullers (Anne Beenken and Stephen Riemekasten) also look strong going into the finals tomorrow.
Germany always shows strength at the junior level and this looks to be the case this year especially in the men's quadruple sculls where they will face a very smooth Italian quad in tomorrow's final. New Zealand and Romania will also be strong challengers for the medals in this event.
Lithuania's Milda Valciukaite and Ieva Adomaviciute look to be shaking up the usual leading nations in the women's double sculls. They will face Canada's Annaliese Ionson and Erin Snelgrove who have proved to be startling sprinters.
Racing will continue on Sunday 7 August with the remainder of the A finals. Racing will begin at the earlier time of 9:00 am (UK time) starting with B finals then A finals from 9:40am in a schedule change necessary due to an expected deterioration of weather conditions.
Tomorrow's A finals will see the following line-ups:
JM2-: RSA, SRB, GRE, ROU, GER, ESP
JW2x: RSA, FRA, LTU, CAN, GER, ESP
JM2x: CZE, FRA, SLO, GER, SUI, GBR
JM4x: HUN, NED, ITA, GER, ROU, NZL
JW1x: CZE, LAT, IRL, GER, DEN, ITA
JM1x: LAT, GRE, IRL, GER, UKR, SUI
JW8+: USA, GER, ROU
To compete in the World Rowing Junior Championships, rowers must be 18 years of age or under. An athlete can compete as a junior until 31 December of the year in which s/he reaches the age of 18. After that date s/he shall be classified an Under 23 rower.
The World Rowing Junior Championships is partly subsidised by the rowers who take part in the World Rowing Masters Regatta which donates 1 Euro of every Masters Regatta entry fee to support youth rowing.
Live scoring, audio streaming, race reports, results and a photo gallery will be available throughout the regatta on www.worldrowing.com.
A full list of entries and an updated provisional timetable can be found here. Detailed results of previous rounds of racing can be viewed here. Most recent timetable is available directly here (version saturday 6 Aug, 18h00).