Langley’s Lisa Roman has won silver for Canada with the women’s eight at the 2018 World Rowing Championships Bulgaria.
It was a come from-behind-charge that secured the Canadians back-to-back world championship medals at the event, held from Sept 9 to Sept. 16.
Roman, Rebecca Zimmerman , Jennifer Martins, Susanne Grainger, Madison Mailey, Stephanie Grauer, Christine Roper, Sydney Payne and coxswain Kristen Kit took home medals.
“Going into this A-Final we had to be mentally tough as we had a lane that was not favoured so we needed to pull together and commit to that mental strength,” said Martins.
Canada sat in fourth position at the halfway mark when they began to charge. Overtaking the Dutch, Canada increased their stroke rate to 42 and closed in on Australia at a rate of 40. It was a photo finish at the line with Canada stealing the silver away from Australia by an eighth of a second.
Canada came in with a time of 6:03.05 with Australia in 6:03.86.
The United States won gold, regaining their World Championship title they held from 2006 until 2016 with a time of 6:00.97.
“Kit (Kristen) made the call at the 600m mark, we all responded and it was an awesome race,” said Martins. “We were a bit shaken after our heat but we still believed we were better than that. We knew we had another gear that we hadn’t shown yet.”
The Canadian Women’s Eight secure back to back silver medals at World Rowing Championships with Roman, Rebecca Zimmerman, Jennifer Martins, Susanne Grainger, Christine Roper and Kristen Kit all returning from last year’s silver medal boat.
READ MORE: Sacrifice, hard work paying off for Langley’s Lisa Roman with spot in Olympics
“It is a really big honour to race in this boat with these girls because they have so much combined experience from previous World Championships and Olympic Games,” said U23 W8+ gold medalist, Stephanie Grauer.
“They have been my idols and to have an amazing regatta like this really speaks to their leadership on and off the water.”
Canada won a total of four medals at the 2018 World Rowing Championships and placed sixth overall in medal standings. Canada captured medals in the following events:
Gold - Women’s Coxless Pair - Hillary Janssens and Caileigh Filmer
Gold - PR3 Men’s Pair - Andrew Todd and Kyle Fredrickson
Silver - Women’s Eight - Rebecca Zimmerman , Jennifer Martins, Susanne Grainger, Madison Mailey, Stephanie Grauer, Christine Roper, Sydney Payne, Lisa Roman and coxswain Kristen Kit
Silver - PR2 Men’s Single - Jeremy Hall
dan.ferguson@langleytimes.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter