It’s finals time on the first day of the Aegon KHB

Jun 24, 2017

It’s finals time on the first day of the Aegon KHB

After a rainy and windy morning, athletes and spectators will be relieved to hear the finals this afternoon will take place in mostly dry and fast conditions. If you are travelling towards the Bosbaan, or watching our livestream, these are the races you don’t want to miss this afternoon:

One of the first exciting races in the schedule, is the U23 Lightweight Men’s double sculls at 1:36 pm. With entries from Australia (Banks/Mercantile composite), Hong Kong, Denmark (Lyngby RK), and the Netherlands (Nereus), this final is small but diverse. From 1:54 pm, the finals of both the Men’s and the Women’s U23 coxless four will take place. While the Men’s final looks to be a prey for the Dutch U23 four, there are multiple contenders in the Women’s final, including Danske Studenters RK, Nereus, and Czech Republic, who all impressed this morning in the heats.

From 2:42 pm, the majority of the Dutch National squad will head out on the Bosbaan, starting with the Women’s pair. This race is followed by the final of the Men’s pair, where we will likely see a battle between Australian Olympians Josh Booth and Josh Dunkley-Smith, and the Dutch U23 pair of Sander de Graaf and Jochem Kostelijk. The Women’s four at 3:12 pm features antoher Dutch National U23 crew, as well as a crew from Sydney RC and a Mercantile RC composite. At 3:40 pm, the big guns from the Men’s double sculls will line up alongside each other for the final, including British Olympians Graeme Thomas and Angus Groome, Luuk Adema and Melvin Twellaar from Groningen, the Dutch National Lightweight double of Jort van Gennep and Bart Lukkes, and Dutch World Cup participants Gerard van der Velde and Vincent Klaassens.

At 4:12 pm, it’s time for the final of the Lightweight Men’s quad. With four crews finishing under or around the 6 minute mark this morning in the heats, it promises to be a close race. Watch out for the crew from the Czech Republic as they posted the fastest time this morning. Directly after this race at 4:18 pm, their heavyweight counterparts will race in the Men’s quad, including a crew from Leander (GB) and Schuylkill Navy (US).

If you like eights rowing, then you should definitely tune in during the late afternoon. First, at 4:24 pm, it’s the Dutch National Junior Men’s eight racing the Australian Schoolboy Champions from Scotch College. At 4:30 pm it is the National Dutch Women’s eight racing on the course, shortly followed by their male colleagues, the Holland acht, in the Men’s eight. The men are facing opposition from the University of Groningen’s Temple eight, and an eight from UC Berkeley.

The last races in the afternoon are the repechages in both the Ladies’ Trophy and the Holland Beker from 5:18 pm. In the repechages of the Holland Beker, the big surprise is Ondrej Synek who failed to directly qualify for the semis, losing out to Sverri Nielsen from Denmark. Also Hans Gruhne and Karl Schulze from Germany will be racing the repechages, and Agustin Diaz from CR Flamengo. The latter lost by just 3 hundredths of a second in the heat to his clubmate Steve Hiestand.

Dutch students will finish the first day of the regatta in the traditional freshmen and development races. Only the best six crews in the general classification, held over races from February until July, may race at the Holland Beker. It is regarded as a great honour for these first and second year rowers to perform on the same stage as Olympic rowers, and the competition for the first place is always fierce.