Rodrigo Conde, fifth at the Bled European Championship together with Aleix Garcia

Rower moanés Rodrigo Conde and his doubles partner, Alex Garciahe finished fifth in the final European rowing played in the Slovenian city of Bled. Although they aspired to climb to the podium, they failed to fulfill the goal of requalifying the continental silver they won in 2022.

Both Conde and García break down like this world vice-champions, his streak of podiums, even as they continue to add finishes to their careers together. On this occasion, they could not withstand the demanding pace imposed by the Croatian brothers Martin and Valent Sinkovićmultiple world, European and Olympic champions.

After the Croatian 6:07.00, the Italian boat came in 6:08.25, and the third was the Dutch 6:10.74. Ireland took almost six seconds off Spain in the final 500 minutes to come in at 6:11.36, while García and Conde clocked 6:17.25. The Spaniards were already third in their semi-final, sensing that the podium would be costly.

“There is a team for a while”

Via Grof’s Instagram convinced telling his followers not to worry, that there is a “team for a while” and explained the circumstances of the final. “We went out into the water with brutal gold famine, incredible desire and motivation, but the competition put us in our place”, he began. He explains that they started well, but then things went wrong: “From 1,000, we tried to make a change and there we lost entirely block and rowingrivals adapted better to the conditions and ran away from us at a speed that didn’t even give us time to react.

They leave, he says, with two clear things: “Physically, we are incredibly well. We didn’t even manage to wear ourselves out we control the ship a little. And we have to learn to recover the block when the situation is so complicated.