Thursday featured the first round of semis, so today was the first really big day of crews earning--or missing--Olympic qualification spots. In the events today, where a top 7 or top 11 finish earns a spot for your nation at the Games, securing a place in the A Final and the top six was enough, and the cause for the kinds of celebrations across the line usually reserved for the medal round.
That all happened in choppy, cross headwind that the three seat of the US Men's Four, Michael Grady, called "very tricky"--but his crew mastered the gnarly water to win their semi outright over the Dutch and the French.
The men's four was the USA's big win on the day in the Olympic events, but five American boats raced to A Final spots--and Paris places--today with strong races from the women's pair, men's pair, light women's double, and women's four. Then the AM session ended with the World Cup leader in the light single, Sophia Luwis, posting another win in her semi-final.
Full US results on the day, and where the crews that raced today will head next:
A/B Semis (boats marked * have qualified for Olympics/Paralympics)
The USA LW2x held onto an exciting, and tight, third place finish ahead of Ireland to qualify. Bow seat Michelle Sechser summed up the prevailing emotions heard in one form or another from the athletes pulling into the flash quote zone right after crossing the line in the top three spots:
"It’s really exciting. You dream so big for the end of cycle goal, but it’s really just one step at a time."
"Advancing out of the heats with the win was great, Mary [Jones Nabel] and I doing our first lightweight race together, advancing today is fantastic but we’re just taking this one step at a time before we get to the really fun part on Saturday."
For her spot in Tokyo, Sechser had to go through the final qualification Regatta in the Olympic year, but now the US will have a guaranteed spot for the light double at the Paris Games that she and the other American light women can train towards.
"It’s really fantastic knowing we’re on the right track and Mary and I can just keep building from here. We’re both very experienced veteran rowers, but it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a lot of race experience yet. People underestimate that, the time together, strokes together, handling stressful races like this together. It was great to be in the tussle with New Zealand and Canada. We got a little sloppy in the last 20 strokes but that’s why we keep practicing, and it’s part of the outdoor sport. It was a fun race, we’re obviously hungry for a little bit more."
Headwind Redux
The day started--and stayed--with a crosswind that prompted another round of lane reallocation, and the water was bouncy from the jump for the first race, and deteriorated from there. So, in all, it was a replay of the challenging conditions from Wednesday. We are told that is the worst of it, so here's to better weather going forward.
In the early races today, the water seemed to flatten in the last 750 or so--right where the USA Women's pair got the best of Greece and the Czechs to qualify--but by mid-morning, the water was rolling all the way along the course.
When the US fans were cheering for the women's four as they left the interview dock, one of the athletes put her finger in the air to draw attention to the headwind and by the time US LW1x Sophia Luwis lined up for the last race of the morning session, the start was "wild" to use the word she did afterwards.
"That was heavy metal rowing in that first 500 meters," said Luwis, who handled the conditions and rowed down a fast starting Romanian sculler in the final 500 to win the semi nonetheless. For context, Luwis won the Lucerne World Cup in 7:32 but went 8:46 today.
row2k caught up with the Claire Collins and Molly Bruggeman from the women's four about what the conditions felt like and what they did to handle the bumpy water; with Luwis herself about putting her single sculling skills to the rough water test; and visited with Billy Bender, the other half of the men's pair, the crew whose magical run rolled right on today, with an Olympic berth and an A Final spot, not to mention a sweet photo with World Rowing's "Qualified" sign:
All that below, plus of course, your Thursday edition of Notes from the Course.
W4-: "Survival Rowing" to Qualify for Paris
The US women put themselves into the A Final just behind GB and ahead of China. The Dutch, Romanians, and Australians will round out the A Final.
row2k: Tell us a bit about what the conditions felt like out there today:
Claire Collins, stroke seat: Frankly, it's pretty bumpy. I would say it was survival rowing, in a way. If you seen our times, it's pretty slow. We're going like a minute slower than GMS [Gold Medal Standard]. The good thing is we practice on Mercer, we practice in bumpy water a lot and so in some ways, it's not totally foreign but it still takes a lot of energy to stay as clean as possible and recover quickly from any bobbles which are bound to happen.
Molly Bruggeman, bow seat: I was telling our coach Jesse Foglia that I've been going to World Championships since 2017, and I don't remember the last time I had a race that was that bumpy and swirly especially at the end. In the last 15 strokes, we were thinking just get to the line.
row2k: what are some things that you think about up in the bow seat, Molly, in conditions like this? What is your job on a day like today?
Molly Bruggeman: There's nothing special about bow. All four of us just have to be moving well together and as clean as possible. I'm the one making the calls, but other than that I'm just trying to row as cleanly and with everybody as I can, because you are stable when your blades are in the water together and when they're out of the water together. It's really as simple as that.
row2k: And for you, Claire, any things that you have to think about doing technically when facing conditions like that?
Claire Collins: You try and stay low in the boat and horizontal, but there was definitely some big gusts out there that made that even hard. There's usually an instinct to think that you have to do more, like lean back on it or have some type of 'Hulk mentality' to push against the wind. But I think it's better to stick to your stroke: letting the legs and the hips dictate the extension and the rhythm. Sticking to that simplicity as much as possible usually allows the boat to cut through the wind.
We talk a lot about making sure we keep getting the body around because that keeps the weight on the seat, and when the body is over, the boat is the most stable. The more we try to stabilize at the finish or do stuff at the back end, the more the boat gets unstable. So it's about letting it send however it's going send in a bumpy water like that, but then coming around so that we can get that stability for the catch.
Luwis Takes on the Waves
Sophia Luwis' semi win was a come-from-behind win, in which she survived the "heavy metal rowing" of the first quarter and used the middle thousand to put her self in a spot to take the lead, battling the chop the whole way.
row2k: You were out there racing the single in the worst of the water we saw this morning, so what was it like rowing up to the start and getting ready to attack those conditions in the smallest boat possible?
Sophia Luwis: I did look at the weather right before and I noticed that the wind was going to be the worst all day, within the hour that my race was going off, but I thought, 'F it! Cool, let's go, let's freakin go.' Because if you can get your head right in those conditions, then you can win. With the accident and all that stuff, I'm not the most confident in my strength and fitness. That's something I'm still gaining confidence back about, but what I'm really confident in is my head game on the water. As soon as I push off the dock, I know that my head game is good.
row2k: And tell us about how you handled the water in the race itself: what were you focusing on as you rowed the conditions and tracked down the Romanian in the last 500.
Sophia Luwis: It was just executing the plan. My coach Sean Hall and I talked about it beforehand, knowing that the first half of the course was going to be really rough. It was about being as clean as possible. The person that can row the cleanest in the beginning, was going to have the best shot at taking advantage of that faster water at the end.
row2k: You won a silver medal at the Varese World Cup in rough water behind the French sculler you just saw again, but came through today to win this race. Can you talk about how you have been improving as the season goes on?
Sophia Luwis: Varese was a learning experience. It was opposite, a big tailwind. Varese caught me off guard and I finished that race feeling like I could have paddled up to start and done whole other race. Since then, my coach and I have just made it a point to never have that happen again. Right. So this was like that situation: Row the conditions, be smart about it, and don't get flustered.
New Men's Pair Takes Another Big Step
Billy Bender and Evan Olson's "hey, let's go to Trials" project motored right into the A Final today, sticking to the sterns of both GB and the Swiss, well ahead of Croatia. In the other semi, the 2022 silver medallists from Spain took fourth, and will not figure on the podium this year.
row2k: A second day of heavy headwind for you guys, so were there any ways you factored the headwind into the race plan today?
Billy Bender: Not really. We just went out and raced. More than anything, in a longer race like this, some guys have been totally blown up in the last 200 meters because they're expecting a 6:20 race instead of seven minutes. The head wind is already harder and then the race is longer, so you're going harder for the same amount of time and you still have 250 meters left.
row2k: What's the key to that longer race?
Billy Bender: You want to make sure you take as many good strokes as you can. It is easy to freak out, take bad strokes, and try to fix it with pressure. If you do that in a race this long, it's probably going to bite you, and the pair is a boat where you can't just handle it. You have to keep the finesse. If you're not picking it up and pressing it off together, it's not going to go.
row2k: As a new lineup, with just a month or so together, do you guys feel like you are still improving?
Billy Bender: (laughing) Well, Wyatt [Allen's] big thing before we were leaving was trying to get us to be able to do a gun'l pause, so it was, tap the gun'ls, crash, tap the gun'ls, crash. So we can't row on the square, we can't gun'l pause. I don't know if we're sticking with this combination [next year], but there's definitely more speed to be gained, because the platform's still a little shaky.
Notes from the Course
Flash Quotes: World Rowing tried something new this year, having all the crews who qualified for Paris in the semis come to what will be the medals area and do interviews while still in the boat for World Rowing flash quote folks, NGB media people, video folks, and more.
From our perspective it went really well; those moments immediately after the race are intense, often raw, and real. The qualifier process is true human drama on full display; tears of joy as well as tears of loss and regret pouring from the eyes of athletes sharing the same patch of water just beyond the finish line. The truth of sport plays rings around us; it can be extremely emotional to be in the midst of it.
Olympic Bling: The Romanian social media folks brought Olympic ring sunglasses to the flash quote dock and gave them to all the crews that qualified their boat for Paris. Good planning ahead there--the athletes loved it.
Medical Withdrawl for Borch (NOR) - We reported yesterday that Kjetil Borch, the Tokyo silver medallist in the men's single, did not get out of the quarterfinals and then we learned today that he has withdrawn for medical reasons. We certainly hope he is doing well, and all credit to the three time Olympian for lining up here to chase a spot in Paris at less than 100%.
Twin-Spotting, Squared - as longtime readers of the row2k Recap know, we love a good twins-in-same-boat photo, so imagine our delight when we realized that the Abraham sisters in the Chilean pair are in fact one half of a set of quintuplets along with their two brothers. Antonia and Melita Abraham won Chile's first ever senior medal at WC1 this year in a four and made the A Final in the pair today today. That assures Chile of a place in Paris--and the first Chilean entry ever in the Olympic women's pair.
First H Final Ever- This was the first time a World Rowing event ran all the way down to an H Final, thanks to the 47 entries in the Men's Single in this pre-Olympic year. Benin's Privel Hinkati won it; he did this Starting Five interview with row2k ahead of his first Olympics in Tokyo and will be racing in the African Continental Qualifier for a place in Paris at the end of October.
On the E-F-G (and H!) Finals - Watching the 'lower' semis and finals, you are now and then struck by how good some of the rowing is. When these same crews are alongside the very best crews, getting beat up by (nearly) professional, superhuman athletes, they do not seem that impressive, but when racing other crews of similar ability and resources, there is some pretty decent rowing--and many of the crews in these lower finals do have something to race for besides pride. The Continental Qualification Regattas that World Rowing and the IOC use to promote universality are just around the corner, and every final with more than one crew from the same region was actually racing that will matter once that part of the Olympic and Paralympic qualification process gets underway.
Surfers Will Get This One - the course got pitted, so pitted.
Must Be Almost Medals Time... You know finals days is upon us when you hear the victory ceremony music when working through your photos and notes post-racing, and then the following (and we quote exactly here): 'Winner of the EVENT, representing COUNTRY... NAME!!!'
Comments | Log in to comment |
There are no Comments yet
|
row2k's Worlds coverage is brought to you in part by:
row2k's Worlds coverage is brought to you in part by: