Rowing: Cop and Spik Crowned World Champions

Gifu, 3 September

Iztok Cop and Luka Spik have won the World Championship title in double sculls on Saturday, after an exciting finish that saw them neck-and-neck with the Italian boat until the very last metres.

In the end the Italians were just 0.35 seconds behind, with Germany's boat over nine seconds adrift.
This is the first medal for Slovenia at the Rowing World Championships taking place in Gifu, Japan.
However, it is the ninth World Championship medal for Cop, Slovenia's most successful rower of all times, and the second for Spik. The two also won silver at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Iztok Cop, Luka Spik, Davor Mizerit and Matej Prelog won silver in quadruple sculls on Sunday, in what is a second medal for Slovenia at this year's World Rowing Championships. Slovenia was hoping for gold all along, yet Poland's boat was constantly slightly ahead, surprisingly beating the Slovenian four not only in the finals but also in the semis.
"I'm speechless. We went for the gold, but I was wondering whether Luka and I could take another difficult race," Cop commented on his second medal. "For me this medal is like gold."
Disagreeing with his fellow rower, Spik said: "Gold is gold and silver is silver." He nevertheless agreed that the Saturday double sculls race did take its toll: "If we had competed only in quadruple sculls, we could have won gold."
The two Slovenian medals from Gifu are the 17th and 18th the Slovenian rowers have won in major competitions, with Cop taking part in as many as 13.

Rowing: Cop and Spik Crowned World Champions

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