The temperature may have cooled and there may just be a mist of rain, but Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon has finally settled down to row-able conditions (at least for the moment). This was a very welcome sign as the cancelation of racing yesterday has lead to a very extensive and robust schedule today with all fourteen events on the Olympic program racing! While there were a few misses here and there, today for the most part went off without a hitch.
US Women’s 8 Is All Business
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The lineups may constantly change for the US Women’s 8, but the results seem to be a constant. For the US Women it’s all business until they cross the finish line for that final on Saturday.
With such high expectations, the crew has received a lot of press and attention, but that doesn’t seem to faze these women at all. “I think we're actually pretty good at ignoring the attention, because we know it's not us. We have a group of 30 that we trained with back at Princeton that pushed us to this point and they keep us focused,”said to 5-seat Tessa Gobbo.
As for the race today, coxswain Katelin Snyder said, “we had a great race. I don't think the times mean anything. I don't think the results mean anything. I think that what we were able to do as a boat was special and I feel really excited about how we executed our plan.”
If you want to know why the US women are as focused and as they are, you don’t have to look any further than the man standing behind these women during their interview. Tom Terhaar has been the US Women’s coach during the 10 year run in the women’s eight and his stamp is on everything they do.
The best sign of this may have been when Snyder was asked what the plan was between now and the final. Her response “Tom will tell us what to do. I have no say in that whatsoever! No knowledge, no say. Maybe nap time!”
No Surprises With The 8’s
The second heat of the Women’s 8 was a very stacked affair, as all of the main challengers for a podium spot (and anyone with any ideas of running with the US Women) found themselves racing each other in their first race of the Olympics. The British women won the second heat over New Zealand and Canada as they positioned themselves as the greatest possible threat to the USA. The British however found themselves in a much tighter battle, as they finished with only a 3 second margin over New Zealand and Canada, in a race that the Kiwis actually led for a majority.
While this strategy may have been a gamble, it had definite practicial considerations, as two of the eight (Rebecca Scown and Genevieve Behrent) are doubling into the pairs, which raced later in the morning. Avoiding the rep would have meant a crucial extra bit of rest; with this result today, Scown and Behrent will race the women’s pair semis and the women’s eight rep 70 minutes apart on Wednesday, whew.
The Canadian women’s eight seems to be a bit off of the pace compared to years past. It is of note that the Canadians do look vastly improved over the crew that raced at World Cup II, but they will need to find another gear if they want to make it on the podium.
The CAN W8 is coxed by 56-year-old Lesley Thompson-Willie who is quietly making her eighth Olympic appearance, and is the oldest rowing competitor here in Rio. If Thompson-Willie makes the podium here, it will be her 6th Olympic medal.
The first heat of the men’s 8 racing unfolded as expected. The Kiwi men’s eight was thought to be the dark horse of these Olympics, but they struggled today against not only the British eight, but the Dutch eight as well. The British men came into Rio as the gold medal favorite and at least for today, they looked the part. The Kiwis may have something up their sleeve and should make their way to the final, but the Brits are looking pretty strong.
The US men’s eight took the hard road to the Olympics through the final Olympic qualifier in May, for the second Olympic cycle in a row. Today the US men needed to finish first to advance directly to final on Saturday, but finished second to the reigning Olympic champs, Germany.
“We have some work to do. I think that's obvious. We clearly want to win everything we race in, so we'll get back out there tomorrow morning or this afternoon and just try and tweak some things so we can have a better result. That's what we're going to try to do.” Said seven seat Rob Munn following the race.
Reps Crank Up the Pressure
While heats at the Olympics are anything but a walk in the park, the reps are nuts. Athletes know they could win or lose their chance at earning a medal by a matter of milliseconds in their reps. When there are no more do-overs, you can see the stress on the athlete’s faces.
The pressure may have been too much for one rower in the first race of the men’s 1x reps. For the 3rd day in a row a rower unintentionally went for a swim in the lagoon. Kazakhstan 1x sculler Vladislav Yakovlev made it about to the end of the breakage zone when he lost his port oar and rolled into the lake. Unfortunately for Yakovley that automatically places him in the E/F semifinals.
As the regatta progressed, one group that knows a little about going in the water here in Rio is the Serbian men’s pair. Following a ruling by FISA on Saturday that allowed this pair to not finish a race,but still progress, the crew proved that they were fast enough to make it to semis.
After the race today they said “It was hard to put it out of our mind. I was in the water and I thought, what's happening, what do I do now? So when the judge said we could continue in the Olympics, I was really happy….Our race today went much better." The Serbians definitely had a better race today as they found themselves in 3rd initially down the course, then worked their way through the US and nearly won the rep.
After a disappointing race for the US Men’s 2- in the choppy waters of Saturday’s heats, the pair seemed to find their groove a bit in the vastly improved conditions on Monday morning.
“Saturday’s race, we didn't pursue the race as aggressively as we should have. Maybe the conditions frazzled us subconsciously. I thought it was a little cautious. I thought that set us up for a pretty poor race. We discussed it and we wanted to go for it from the start today and let the chips fall where they may, and I thought we did a pretty decent job,” said stroke seat Nareg Guregian after the race
“Today we wanted to go for it from the start, so we did and I think about 500 meters in we were a little higher than I wanted to be. Weiss did a good job making some good calls to regroup and refocus, and I thought we stayed internal. We were trying to pace ourselves off the Serbs a little, and it kept us going for 1,000 meters, which was good. After that, it was just hold on, keep pushing, and trusting each other,” continued Guregian.
Bow seat Anders Weiss also added, “we know the Serbs are a really fast crew. It's very unfortunate what happened to them in the heat. We knew they were really fast. We knew they should've been in the semi already. And so, if we want to progress to the final, we have to improve upon the spot where they move the most on us.”
USA W4x Squeak Into Final
Three of the events, the W8+, M8+, and W4x have just seven entries. The repechage progression for these events are five crews for four spots in the medal final so the rep is particularly brutal. The USA W4x found themselves in this situation on Monday. The crew got out to a good start and was in second place behind Poland through the first quarter of the race. As the close race progressed towards the sprint, the USA had to sprint for qualification, finishing in fourth, just 0.05 behind third place China, and 0.06 seconds ahead of Australia.
"It was awesome," said 3-seat Megan Kalmoe following the race. "That's what we come here to do, to race really really hard. The athletes are all so talented we've seen the field be really really close last year and this season as well. We expected a really close race and that's what we got today so we're happy that we executed well today."
The crew has now qualified for Wednesday's A Final, and will race in one of the outside lanes; a similar path that the 2015 USA W4x followed en route to winning the World Championship.
Lightweight Women Hit The Water
The heats for the lightweight doubles got underway today after facing weigh-ins on Sunday, only to have races canceled --doh. The athletes took it in stride. The US the new combination of Kate Bertko and Devery Karz had a solid race, but in such a competitive field finished in 3rd, sending their boat to the reps.
“You know, it's always hard to go through another weigh-in that you didn't plan on, but I think, like all the other crews, you deal with the adversity that you've been given and move on. I think Kate and I did a good job with that, and we're going to take what we learned today and move forward. It's always been tight in the light women's double. It's only one event, 20 boats. Everybody wants to make it.” said bow seat Karz after the race.
If there were ever more definitive proof in how tight the field is for the lightweight women’s doubles it was the US women’s heat. As the US 2x crossed the finish line in 3rd, last place in their heat was the GB women LW2x. The GB women were not only silver medalists at the world championships last year, but they also have half of the London 2012 gold medal crew in this event in their boat!
Light Men Are Crazy
When I say crazy, I mean in how aggressively they attack a race. In the first heat of the light men’s 2x the Irish double was being called by the announcers as rating above 40 for much of the last 750 of the race. That’s starting your sprint very early!
For the US, the light double of Andrew Campbell and Joshua Konieczny made their Olympic debut finishing in second behind Norway to qualify for A/B Semis. Despite being at their first Olympics with all of the changes to the schedule, the US 2x was able to put in a solid piece.
“There's a little bit of nerves going on (at the start of the race), but mostly I'm just trying to empty my mind, take a few deep breaths, and just of focus on the task at hand. I would say my mind is pretty clear the moment the light went on.” Said bow seat Konieczny.
It has been a while since this double raced on the international stage so they viewed it as an opportunity to gauge where they are at relative to the field. “We're always trying to take it one race at a time, and so the goal for today was to just advance, and it was also to kind of test ourselves in a racing environment. The last time we raced was a month and a half ago, and so this is a good chance to just ramp up without the pressure of needing to capture a spot from a close situation. So, all in all, it's a good chance to get warmed up for the semis,” said stroke seat Andrew Campbell following the race.
Campbell continued, “We were down pretty far off the start. That's something we'll work on going in the semis. We were solidly in second the whole way and not losing ground to the Norwegians, so that is a good sign.”
Sweep Heats
If you just looked at the results from the women’s pair you probably would think everything went as planned. The US women won their heat and the British women won their heat. What could prove to be very interesting moving forward however was the incredibly close race for the British women’s 2-. The GB women’s pair has not lost a race since 2011, although for about 1750 meters today it looked like that streak might come to an end.
Coming into the 1500, the British women were actually behind the crew from Denmark, who were under stroking the British by as much as five beats at one point. While the British crew of Heather Stanning and Helen Glover eventually pulled ahead of the Denmark pair by .23 seconds, this could be an early indication of a changing of the guard for the final. If the Denmark pair has another gear the Brits may be in trouble by more than just the Americans.
The Drag Race That Is the Mens 4-
Australia may not have a men's eight at the Olympics for the first time since 1948, but their men’s 4- looked very strong today. Australia has a tradition of success in the four with the famous Oarsome Foursome, (including the great Drew Ginn, who is on hand reporting here this week), the next generation of rowers are looking just as strong.
The British men’s 4 came into this regatta as the favorite with their 4 top athletes on board, but if this Aussie 4 puts together a complete race (and they don’t have a boat stopping crab) the British could have a real test on their hands.
The British men’s 4 won their heat as well. After the race bow seat Alex Gregory said, “the pressure valve has been released a little bit…. You just try and stay as normal as possible. Ultimately we've been training four years for this, so what's another day? It's just a normal race for us. It's the Olympics, it's bigger, it's everything for us, but you've got to treat it as a normal race”
The US Men have really invested in creating the fastest 4 possible for the Rio Olympics and were looking to see how they would perform on the international stage. Today they accomplished what they needed to, in order to advance, but the US four seemed to still be looking for that next gear, as they finished third today, just bowing to Canada in the sprint.
“We think that we just need to bring a little more passion to the race and get out there and just basically cruise around this. We've been in a similar situation before, we know we can do it, and we know that these crews demand that we row our best to advance to medals,” said three-seat Henrik Rummel
“It almost felt a little light, as if we weren't using the legs enough. And so, I think we just need to push the boat more with these strokes in the middle thousand,” said two-seat Matt Miller
“We knew we were going to be sprinting through the line no matter what…I think we were feeling decent coming into the sprint,” said Miller. “We still had a good sprint in us. I think we would have possibly done a little better… we thought with 400 to go that we could even get Canada, so it's a little disappointing that we didn't, but I think we should and we need to in the future.”
Notes From The Course
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