Coxless Fours, Men

This event featured a very balanced field with a number of teams being able to claim status as race favourites. Australia were World Champions in 2017 and 2018, but tinkered with their team prior to the 2019 Championship, resulting in a sixth place finish. For the Olympics they returned to a more veteran lineup. Great Britain were bronze medallists at the 2019 Championships and served notice that they were a team to be reckoned with based on their victory in this year’s European Championship. Romania, silver medallists at the 2021 European Championships, and runner-ups at the 2019 Worlds, and Italy, winners of the recent World Cup III, also brought strong credentials to the event.

The favourites all went through to the finals, although Romania had to rely on the repêchage to get there, with the Netherlands and the United States joining them to round out the field. Australia and Great Britain had the fastest times in the heats, but it was Romania who broke out fastest to start the final. They were soon overtaken by the Australians, though, who forged to a boat length lead at the 700m mark. Great Britain then began to make a move, overtaking the Romanians, and setting their sights on the leaders. Unfortunately for them, in the closing stages their boat went a little crooked and, by the time they recovered, Romania and Italy passed them to take the silver and bronze respectively. While all of this was going on behind them, Australia cruised to victory in an Olympic best time.