Coxed Pairs, Men

The last 12 World Championship medals in the men’s coxed pairs had gone to only four countries. Giuseppe Di Capua and brothers Carmine and Giuseppe Abbagnale of Italy were the defending Olympic champions, winners of four World Championships (1981, 1982, 1985, and 1987), runners-up in 1985 and bronze medalists in 1983. Andy Holmes, Steven Redgrave, and Patrick Sweeney of Great Britain were the 1986 World Champions and the 1987 runners-up. The Romanian duo of Dimitrie Popescu and Vasile Tomoiagă were the most recent Olympic runners-up, the 1985 World runners-up, and the 1987 World bronze medalists with different thirds and brought Ladislau Lovrenschi, a 1972 Olympic bronze medalist, with them to the 1988 Games. East Germany had won the remaining two bronze medals and was represented Mario Streit, Detlef Kirchhoff, and René Rensch.

Italy asserted its dominance early on by not only defeating Great Britain and Romania in its opening heat, but doing so in the round’s fastest time. East Germany and the Soviet Union, the latter represented by Roman Kazantsev, Andrey Korikov, and Andrey Lipsky, were the other heat winners. Italy unleashed another impressive display in the semi-finals by besting East Germany and Romania in Olympic record time, while Great Britain lost its heat by 0.28 seconds to Bulgarians Atanas Andreev, Emil Groytsev, and Stefan Stoykov. The final, similarly, was no contest: the Italians took gold handily, leaving silver for the East Germans and bronze for the Britons. In addition to their third-place finish in this event, Holmes and Redgrave also won the coxless pairs in Seoul.

1988 Quadruple Sculls, Men