HAZEWINKEL, Belgium - Meindert Klem (Ouderkerk, The Netherlands), a member of the Boston University men’s crew, finished fifth in the world in the Senior B Men’s Single Sculls at the 2006 World Rowing Under 23 Championship on Sunday. Competing for his native the Netherlands, Klem placed third in the A semifinal on Saturday to advance to the A final, where he came up fifth with a time of 6:57.93.

Although Klem led the race for the first 500 meters, he could not maintain his initial pace and dropped back to third place at the halfway point. Crossing the 1,500-meter mark in fourth, he was edged out of fourth place by a fifth of a second in the sprint. The top-two finishers, Germany’s Karsten Brodowski and New Zealand’s Nathan Cohen, both broke the previous world record in the event with times of 6:46.93 and 6:50.07, respectively.

Romania’s Daniel Frateanu was third (6:52.52), Latvia's Kristaps Bokums was fourth (6:57.72) and Norway's Nils Hoff was sixth (6:58.79) behind Klem.

In the A Semifinal on Saturday, Klem placed third in 7:24.65, behind Cohen (7:18.30) and Brodowski (7:22.77), and ahead of Poland’s Arnold Sobczak (7:29.08) and Argentina’s Cristian Rosso (8:06.26).

Although he has only been rowing since 2003, Klem has represented his country at the 2003 European Championships in the single and both the 2004 and 2005 World Rowing Junior Championships in the quadruple sculls. He previously finished third and seventh, respectively, in the 2004 and 2005 World Juniors.

In his first season at BU, Klem rowed in the seven seat of the first freshman eight boat (freshmen are required to row in all-freshman boats) that finished ninth overall at both the Eastern Sprints and the IRA Regatta.