Romania tops rowing medal table
Romania's rowers made a series of strong performances over four action-packed days of racing at Strathclyde Country Park to top the Glasgow 2018 European Championships medal table with three golds, two silvers and two bronzes.
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Madalina Beres (ROU) and Denisa Tilvescu (ROU) won two gold medals in the women's pair and the women's eight. The Romanian men's four also won gold and Romanian silvers came from their men's double sculls crew and women's four, while the men's eight and men's pair both secured bronze.
For Marian-Florian Enache (ROU) in the men's double sculls, his silver was timed perfectly for his 23rd birthday. Enache said
It's the best gift for my birthday in this beautiful country and amazing space
Four countries won two European titles each at Glasgow 2018 - Italy, France, Switzerland and Norway. Both of the Swiss and Norwegian golds came today.
Switzerland's women's single sculls world champion Jeannine Gmelin continued her unbroken streak of wins with another solid performance, getting her bows in front of a strong field by the 1000-metre mark. Magdalena Lobnig (AUT) came past Diana Dymchenko (UKR) to take silver.
Swiss lightweight men's single sculler Michael Schmid defended the title he won last year in the Czech Republic in some style, leading throughout the race ahead of Martino Goretti (ITA).
Norway's Kjetil Borch took his first title in the single sculls after switching from racing the double sculls last season. He rowed through Mindaugas Griskonis (LTU) in the last quarter of the race to secure the win. His medal followed the gold won by Are Strandli (NOR) and Kristoffer Brun (NOR) in the lightweight men's double sculls earlier today, ahead of Ireland and Italy respectively.
The French men's double scullers, Matthieu Androdias and Hugo Boucheron, produced the best row of their careers to win gold, with Boucheron afterwards expressing astonishment at their achievement.
"It's been two years that we are waiting for this. We had some difficult moments but this is what we wanted," Boucheron said.
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The men's win followed that of Helene Lefebvre (FRA) and Elodie Ravera-Scaramozzini (FRA) in the equivalent women's event today.
The regatta ended as many had predicted with a win by Germany in the men's eight, although they did not have the race all their own way. Romania led out before Netherlands briefly took the lead, but Germany found their power and rhythm in the second half and went on to win by a comfortable two-second margin.
It was the sixth successive European title for the German flagship boat. Maximilian Planer (GER) said afterwards: "It was a really hard race but we knew if we gave everything we had, we could walk away champions."
