Meghan O'Leary and Ellen Tomek were near the back of the pack in the women's double sculls semifinal, with only one crew behind them halfway to the finish line and a chance to race in a final at the 2016 Olympic Games.
Racing from behind is not an encouraging position for most, especially in a semifinal against the best crews in the world with a chance to crack into the biggest moment - an award ceremony that only comes around every four years.
Four years is a long time, and those years can be spent wondering what went wrong. Or not. The women could avoid that by pulling from the preparation and experience of the previous four years.
"We've been in that position before," said O'Leary (Baton Rouge, La.) "Everything that's happened in the past several days, we've had happen to us over the last four years - everything from (not having) a stakeboat holder at the start, to being sprinted through.
"In Varese (world cup racing), New Zealand nipped us at the line by like, fourteen hundredths of a second, so nothing really rattled us. We were down. We were actually getting waked from Greece. They were that much ahead of us at one point in the race."
So, O'Leary and Tomek (Flint, Mich.) drew from those experiences and the two races this week - one that included a near disaster in the heat with two critical missed strokes in bad conditions and the second of having to power through a repechage on Monday - and chipped away at the lead the crews had in front of them.
And it all started with two words shouted into Tomek's ear. "Something like, 'More. Now!' around the 750," Tomek said.
And they poured it on for the remainder of the race, edging into fourth and then, with nothing left but the finish line, they moved into third and a spot in the Olympic final. For a moment, the big screen broadcasting the race at the end of the course listed them in fourth, one place out.
O'Leary had a sense that it was wrong, so she waited.
"I knew we were jockeying, and Ellen said when she looked over she saw it was New Zealand, and I thought 'Oh, man.' They're known for being able to nip people at the line. I looked across at Greece and Lithuania, and there was just this long pause. As soon as we saw USA go up next to number three, we sort of lost it."
So now, the women's double will race on Thursday in the medal round, becoming the third U.S. women's crew of the six entered in this Olympics to have earned a chance at the podium.
Two other women's crew that raced Tuesday advanced one step closer to joining them including Gevvie Stone (Newton, Mass.), who won her quarterfinal to move into the semifinals, and Kate Bertko (Oakland, Calif.) and Devery Karz (Park City, Utah), who won their repechage and gained the semis.
The lightweight women also provided a quick moment of excitement when Karz lost her left oar early in the race, regained it and kept going toward the finish line and the win.
"We're a crew, so we do everything together," Bertko said. "We communicate; we respond. We have a strategy for dealing with misadventure. It just snaps right in. Devery comes from a pretty good adventure sport background, with mountain biking and skiing, so she knows how to correct when the going gets tough."
Two men's crews - the pair and the lightweight four - did not advance out of their semifinals Tuesday and will race in the B final for a chance to place between seventh and 12th overall.
The morning started with flat-water conditions on the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas Olympic racecourse. But before Stone got there, a light wind turned up and caused a bit of a chop.
Stone handled worse conditions on Saturday, when her boat nearly went underwater in the middle of her opening race, and she handled today's conditions as well.
She started the race rowing in third place in the first 500, and then calmly and methodically moved through the pack to win in 7:27.04. Switzerland's Jeannine Gmelin was second in 7:29.66, and Magdalena Lobnig of Austria was third in 7:35.37.
Stone has one more step to make to the final in Thursday's semifinal against Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, China and Belarus.
"It was windier during my race than it is now," Stone said, following her event. "But I'm OK with that. So it was a little bit of managing conditions and trying to get power on it. I've raced Jeannine and (Lobnig) a lot over the past two years, so you kind of get used to each other's tendencies. I tried to make the most of my base rhythm, because that's my strength."
Her strategy on Thursday will depend on the competition. "It really does. It depends on who the competitors are and what kind of game they play. We know each other well enough," she said. "It's one step down, but the goal is not to make the A/B semis. I definitely feel good about it. But I'm definitely thinking about the next race and moving on again, hopefully."
The lightweight women's double repechage started without a hitch. Japan jumped into the lead, and Bertko and Karz were going after them when Karz lost her oar. Other U.S. staff, coaches and athletes watching the race on the big screen in the athlete area noticeably caught their collective breath, but began breathing again as the two women seemed not to miss a beat and began going after Japan again.
By the third 500, they had the lead, and they held it.
"We trained to execute this race and that's what we did," Karz said. "The goal is to keep progressing. That was our goal, so we did it. It gets a little bouncy. Everyone makes a little technical mistake, so we just moved through it like nothing happened. We didn't focus on that stroke, but we focused on the next stroke, stayed calm and kept moving and got the result that we wanted.
"It's a split-second thing. And if you think about it too much, I think then the next stroke gets hard."
The U.S. won the race in 7:58.90, and Japan was second in 8:00.50. Only two of the six boats racing advanced.
Bertko and Karz face Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, Canada and Ireland in the Wednesday semifinal.
In the men's pair, Nareg Guregian (North Hills, Calif.) and Anders Weiss (Barrington, R.I.) finished fifth in their semifinal and now race in the B final.
"I think Olympic semifinals are pretty hard, and we know that," Guregian said. "They're always really close. Our goal was to put ourselves in position to advance to the final, and I thought we did a decent job of it at the start of the race.
"To me, it felt pretty good, and then I guess, that's rowing. It hits you pretty hard, and we faded the last 750 of the race. That's just the level of competition. I thought we did a pretty good job. Unfortunately, it wasn't fast enough."
"Of course, we are disappointed," said Weiss. "We wanted to race in that A final. That being said, we want to place as high as we can. Right now, we're going to sulk for 20 or 30 more minutes, and then we're on to the next race, which is the B final. We're still racing incredible competition in the B final. It's not like all of the talent is only in the A final."
In the final race of the day, the lightweight men's four crew of Tyler Nase (Phoenixville, Pa.), Edward (Mix) King (Ironton, Mo.), Robin Prendes (Miami, Fla.) and Anthony Fahden (Lafayette, Calif.) raced in the semifinal but did not advance.
Racing in fourth for most of the course, they finished fifth in 6:26.82. They race in the B final Thursday for places seven through 12.
With four days of the eight-day Olympic regatta in the books, three U.S. women's crews have reached the medal rounds. Grace Luczak (Ann Arbor, Mich.) and Felice Mueller (Cleveland, Ohio) will attempt to be the fourth in Wednesday's opening race. The quad races in the final Wednesday and is the first chance for the U.S. to medal. The men's squad will have the four and the lightweight double going to the line in semifinals, the double hoping to reach the final for the first time ever. The men's eight will race in the Wednesday rep for a shot at the Saturday final.