Quadruple Sculls, Men

The Soviet Union had won the men’s quadruple sculls at the last two editions of the World Championships and, after the collapse of that nation, its representatives, Valeriy Dosenko, Sergey Kinyakin, Mykola Chupryna, and Girts Vilks, entered the 1992 Summer Olympics as the favorites under the banner of “Unified Team”. The powerhouse in the opening round, however, was a unified Germany, who won their heat in Olympic record time thanks to the sculling prowess of André Willms, Andreas Hajek, Stephan Volkert, and Michael Steinbach. The other heats were won by France and Norway, the latter of whom brought a crew that included Lars Bjønnes and Rolf Thorsen, silver medalists from the event at the 1988 Games. In the semi-finals the Soviets, who had been performing poorly, were eliminated, while Germany and Italy, runners-up at two of the last three World Championships, took the heats. Germany continued its strong run by claiming gold in the final and improving on their Olympic record, while Norway edged out Italy by 0.24 seconds to repeat its second-place performance from 1988. In fact, Italy was barely able to hold on to bronze, finishing third ahead of Switzerland by only 0.09 seconds.