Canada's top Junior rowers are doing a solid job representing their country at rowing's Olympic test event - the 2007 World Rowing Junior Championships (Aug. 8 to 11), Shunyi Rowing-Canoeing Park in Beijing, China.
Canada's Lauren Wilkinson (North Vancouver, BC) dominated her repechage race today, finishing in a time of 7:54.48 - she will move to the semi-finals. The Ukraine's Nataliya Dovgodko and Marcela Milosevic of Croatia fought it out for the second and third qualifying spots. In the end, it was Canada, Croatia (7:58.75) and the Ukraine (8:02.08) that advanced from this rep.
"I had a bit of a rocky start to the racing (in the heats), so it felt good to have a solid performance in the repechage," sid Wilkinson. "Tomorrow's semi will be fast, so I'm excited to see what I can do."
In the men's double, Canada won its race today to advance to the semi-finals. With the top two doubles moving forward, David Wakulich of St. Catharines, Ont. and Alexander Soutter of Thornhill, Ont. won their rep in a time of 6:42.02, Croatia followed in 6:49.14.
"Winning our repechage was a confidence booster," said Soutter. "We felt good about our performance and think that if we race like we did today, we will come out fine in the semifinal tomorrow."
The Junior women's pair - Bridget Moran of London, Ont. and Samantha Sartor of Mississauga, Ont. - finished just off the qualification pace in third in today's rep in 7:33.01. China (7:26.53) and Portugal (7:30.02) move forward from this rep. The Canadians will row in the B final for places seven to 12.
In today's quarterfinals, the Junior women's double finished fourth in 7:25.13, missing out on qualifying for the semi (top three moved forward). Claudia Blandford of Winnipeg, Man. and Alex Crawshaw of Victoria, BC. will move to the C/D semis.
The Canadian Junior men's pair and four had already advanced to Friday's semis, based on yesterday's performances.
As expected, the temperature is high (30s), but within international safety guidelines for racing.