11 Oct '02 , Lake Wendouree, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Day 3 of competition for the Kent Mitchell Rowing Club was every bit as rewarding as the first 2 days. Today's races added 2 more gold medals and 1 silver out of the 4 events KMRC entered today. In the 4th event, KMRC's B coxless pair placed 4th out of the 40 B pair crews entered in that event.
Thursday's Results:
Gold medal - E8+ (men's eights whose members must average between 55-59 years of age) Stroke Dick Lyon, #7 Larry Hough, #6 Vlado Krizek, #5 Darko Miksic, #4 Mike Still, #3 John Nunn, #2 Skip Spiering, Bow Dick Draeger, Cox Kent Mitchell , avg. age 55.25)
KMRC's boat won its heat and semi-final. Seventeen eights from 5 countries entered this event, including New Zealand's 1972 Olympic Champions in the eight from the Munich Games. KMRC was jumped by a few feet by New Zealand, a German crew, and the Toowong R.C. from Australia which had won the other semi-final. KMRC caught the field in the first minute and had the lead at 500 meters on the 1000 meter course. With 300 meters to go, it was between Toowong and KMRC, which had extended its lead to « length. By the finish, the margin was a full boat length over Toowong and Germany was third. KMRC's time on glassy, windless, dead flat conditions was 3:10.
Gold medal - F4-..."The Croatian Connection" (Coxless fours averaging 60-64 years of age) Stroke Vlado Krizek, #3 Darko Miksic, #2 Bryan Belacic , Bow Boris Beljak, all born in Croatia. Vlado and Darko reside in Zagreb, Croatia, and Bryan and Boris in Southern California. They led all the way and defeated 7 other Australian boats in a finals only event for the gold medal.
Silver medal - H2- ..."The Helsinki Boys" Belacic and Beljak, members of Yugoslavia's 1952 Olympic team in Helsinki, Finland, before they left for the US, then teamed up to take a silver medal in the 70+ coxless pair event, their second medal of the day.
4th Place - B2- (Men's coxless pair, average age range of 36-42) Mike Still and Shawn Heffernan won their pair heat, qualified for the 8-boat final by placing 4th in their semi-final, and with a furious finishing sprint in the final moved up from 6th to place 4th overall among the 40 crews that entered this event, just missing a medal.
Weather conditions today were ideal and the lakeshore was crowded with spectators much like a full Fisa championship regatta. Tomorrow is the last day of racing for KMRC which will enter a number of fours, pairs and possibly quadruple sculls events.