Coxless Pairs, Women

Defending Olympic champions in the Women’s Coxless Pair, Helen Glover and Heather Stanning of Great Britain, were again the favorites at the 2016 Games. Glover had won the last three editions of the World and European Championships, primarily with Stanning, although she had substituted Polly Swann for the 2013 Worlds and 2014 Europeans while Stanning was serving in the British Army. At the Europeans, Romania, represented in Rio by Mădălina Bereș and Laura Oprea, had been the Britons’ most consistent competitors, although New Zealand was the only nation aside from Britain to have reached the podium at each of the last three editions of the World Championships. This country sent Genevieve Behrent and Rebecca Scown to the 2016 Games, the latter of whom was a 2012 Olympic bronze medalist and 2010 and 2011 World Champion. Australia, the 2012 Olympic runner-up, did not participate in this event.

Great Britain and New Zealand won their preliminary heats, but Romania finished a surprising last in a heat won by Americans Grace Luczak and Felice Mueller, the latter of whom was 2015 World bronze medalist. Luczak, meanwhile, was had twice been World Champion in the eights and once in the fours. Romania rebounded by winning the repêchage, but was eliminated in the semifinals behind Great Britain, the United States, and South Africans Lee-Ann Persse and Kate Christowitz. In the other semifinal, the unheralded Danish duo of Hedvig Rasmussen and Anne Andersen finished ahead of the New Zealanders to earn an unexpected berth in the final. There they performed admirably and even led for a time in an exciting race, but were no match ultimately for the Britons and the New Zealanders, who finished first and second respectively, leaving Denmark to settle for bronze.