Australian pair take bronze to end Paris rowing drought in brutal coxless pair final
Australia’s lean run at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium has finally come to an end as WA’s Annabelle McIntyre and Jess Morrison secured bronze in a sterling effort in the women’s pairs finals.
Despite Australia’s dominance in the pool, their efforts on top of the water have been poor as the men failed to defend their fours title finishing last in their A final while the women didn’t even make the medal race after winning gold in Tokyo.
But finally, there was some relief as McIntyre and Morrison pushed hard out of the gates and despite running out of steam head on to win the bronze.
They had qualified fourth fasted for the final with the world-champion Netherlands pair Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester the overwhelming favourites to win gold after winning their semifinal by more than four seconds.
It meant the real race was always likely to be for second but Australia chose to go hard to stick with the Netherlands and despite being down by over three seconds at the halfway mark were clear of the rest of the field in second.
But the brutal pace meant they began to tire heading into the final 500m with Romanian pair Ioana Vrinceanu and Roxana Anghel rapidly closing them down.
The Aussie pair dug deep, but in the final 100m the Romanians ran over the top of them leaving the Australians to settle for bronze.
It is McIntyre’s second Olympic medal having been part of the winning women’s fours team in Tokyo which Morrison was also apart of.
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