LAC AIGUEBELETTE, France - In its heat on Sunday, the United States men's quad rowed well enough to advance out of their heat for the first three quarters of the race.
But it slipped away from them in the last five hundred meters.
Tuesday morning in the repechage, their last opportunity to reach the semifinal in their event, the California Rowing Club quadruple sculls crew of Ian Silveira (West Bloomfield, Mich.), Hans Struzyna (Kirkland, Wash.), John Madura (West Milford, N.J.) and Derek Johnson (Hillsborough, Calif.) did the reverse. They were behind in the first quarter, but pulled back into the pack and finished third to advance. Now they look to put the two pieces together for the Thursday semifinal. The U.S. finished in 5:48.92. Italy won in 5:46.55, and Spain was second in 5:47.40.
"It was a little conservative at the start," said Johnson. "We found ourselves behind in the first five hundred and slowly chipped away. We had a couple of opportunities to crack into the lead of the race, but it never really came together. We held on to qualify for the semis, which was our goal.
"In our heat, we executed a good first 1,500 (meters) and didn't quite follow through in the last 500, he said. "This race was the opposite. We had a better final 1,500 and didn't quite execute the first 500. We have the pieces; now we just need to put them together."
The men's quad was one of only three U.S. crews in action on Tuesday. The lightweight men's eight rowed in a race for lane placement and the trunk and arms mixed double sculls rowed in an afternoon repechage.
ltm8heatIn the race for lanes, the composite lightweight men's eight crew of coxswain Jack Carlson (Weston, Mass.) of Oxford Brookes University Boat Club, New York AC, Matthew Lenhart (Lafayette, Calif.) of California Rowing Club, Dave Smith (Seattle, Wash.) of Virginia Rowing Association, Alex Twist (Seattle, Wash.) of Seattle Rowing Center, Philip Henson (Somerset, N.J.) of Craftsbury, Community Rowing, Inc., Peter Schmidt (Providence, R.I.) of Riverside Boat Club, Christopher Lambert (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) of Malta Boat Club, Jack Devlin (Arlington, Va.) of Community Rowing Inc. and Tobin McGee (Rye, N.Y.) of New York Athletic Club and Riverside Boat Club finished fourth in 5:49.45. Germany won in 5:44.72. France was second in 5:46.32 and Turkey was third in 5:46.96.
"We had a couple of bad strokes off the start and had to claw our back a little bit," said Schmidt. "Conditions were the absolute glass we've been used to all this week, but I think that we learned a few things out there and have some things we can carry with us into the final and hopefully move up a couple of spots in the finish."
In the last event of the day, the trunk and arms mixed double composite crew of Betsy Irwin Mitchell (Sarasota, Fla.) of Sarasota Adaptive Rowing Program and Scott Brown (Collingdale, Pa.) of Brooks Adaptive Rowing finished fifth in the repechage of their event and will row in the Thursday B final. The crew will need a top-two finish in order to qualify the boat class for the 2016 Paralympic Games.