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One of the highlights of the competition day was men’s K4 500 metres final, where Germany continued their winning streak. Max Rendschmidt, Max Lemke, Jacob Schopf and Tom Liebscher-Lucz did not have a good result last year at European Games, later they changed the seating arrangement and the success came in Paris. This was the third consecutive medal for German K4 at the Olympics with Liebscher-Lucz and Rendschimdt being part of the winning crew on all three occasions, it was second Olympic gold for Lemke and the first for Schopf in K4 who came into the boat after Ronald Rauhe retired after Tokyo. Rio was contested over 1000 metres and Tokyo already saw half of the distance (500 metres).

 

Germans won gold medal in tight final only 0.04 seconds ahead of Australia, while Spain, who took an early lead into the race, finished in third position. “It was quite tight, so we didn’t know that we had won. I had a feeling that we were in front in the last 25 metres, but the Australians had a pretty good speed at the end so I wasn’t sure if we got first or second across the finish line. After we saw the sign we were super happy that all the hard work over the past three years paid off and we managed to win as the favourites here, which was very hard for our mind but we are a very good team and we managed to get through it together,” said Lemke.

 

Women’s K4 500 metres title went to New Zealand who upset two European boats. Since 1988 no other crew then Hungarian or German won Olympic gold in this event, and New Zealand led by Lisa Carrington concluded this historic record. This time Germany won silver medal and Hungary had to settle with bronze.

 

In men’s C2 500 metres event, China celebrated gold with Hao Liu and Bowen Ji, Italy’s Gabriele Casadei and Carlo Tacchini and Spain’s Joan Antoni Moreno and Diego Dominquez claimed silver and bronze respectively.