Identical German twins Johanna and Marion Reichardt, racing here in the Light Women's Double, had a pretty good start to their Senior International Careers here in Racice.
They knocked off the Italian Olympic Champions in their heat and, while the young sisters did not make it through the semis, they will see the Italians again in today's B Final...since the Italians never quite recovered from getting sent to the Reps to start the week.
(To be fair, the Italian misses have been, in this event of tight margins, very "near" ones: they wisely conserved themselves in their 1-to-qualify heat after Ireland jumped to the lead and just .22 seconds kept them out of the A Final.)
Both Reichardt sisters have U23 medals--Marion in the Light Quad from 2017 and Johanna from the Light Single in 2019--and they raced together in the Light Quad in 2018, taking 4th, but the 2022 season has been their first in the Light Double together. They earned their spots in the Olympic class boat by coming 1-2 in the domestic German trials this year.
"This is our favorite boat class," Marion told row2k, noting that they often rowed the double as juniors.
"But all national qualifications were in the single," said Marion, so it was not until this year that the sisters won the chance to race the double at the senior level.
On racing together with her twin, Marion said that:
"If we race with other people, it's more stressful, even on land before before you go out on the water. But if we race together, we know what the other one wants to do. And the warmup, too: others mostly don't want to warm up so much as we do."
In the heat against the Italians, the sisters started out planning to row the progression.
"We though, it is okay if we don't win the race," said Johanna, since they had both the Italians and Irish in the race, "but in the end, we saw that we can do it and we can have fun."
"At first, it was very easy over the middle 1000," added Marion, "and then in the end, we thought it's not necessary [to beat Italy], but we have a chance."
"In the end, we thought: Why not? There they are, go on!" said Johanna.
The repechage did not go as well for the twins, who advanced but in second, which gave them an outside lane for the semi.
"That race was terrible," confessed Johanna of the rep. "From the rowing technique [standpoint], it was a catastrophe. It was too much force, too much work."
"Too much upper body instead of legs," added Marion, "and not smooth."
They did just hold off the Czech double to advance, but it was a much closer and less comfortable margin than the sisters had had over the Czechs at Europeans.
In the next round, the sisters did not advance out of the semi, taking sixth, but they felt it was a much smoother race, although:
"It wasn't as fast," said Johanna.
"We drove to the one side and then the other with steering," noted Marion. "And the first 500 was not good - but that's typical for us, that we are very slow at the start. And then we come over the middle thousand.
"In the next years, we need to practice the power at the start and finish the sprint, but over the middle thousand, it is okay."
This next three years could land the twins in Paris, and they are one of just four new combinations to make the top 12 in the light women's double here.
While one clear storyline from this event here in Racice is the near re-row of the Tokyo Final that we will get in the A Final (as emphasized a couple days ago by the US LW2x), it is worth remembering that start of the Paris 2024 cycle will also bring new combinations into the event--and the Reichardt twins will be on the list of those to watch as the shortened quadrenniel unfolds.
Of course, row2k just had to ask whether the twins had ever tried to trick coaches or teammates by switching seats, but Johanna said no:
"We row very differently, so every coach would see from from far away. We do switch seats, but just for training, not to trick anyone."
The twins will see that Italian pair again today, along with Canada's Tokyo double, in the B Final.
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