The Olympic and Paralympic Trials for the 2024 Paris Games got underway in Sarasota Thursday morning. Athletes are racing in 8 Olympic and 2 Paralympic boat classes for the opportunity to make the US Team and compete this summer in France.

Following the Thursday morning time trial, racing will continue with semi-finals on Saturday and finals on Sunday, both of which will be live-streamed on Peacock as part of NBC's Olympic coverage.

The winners in the three events which the US team qualified in Belgrade Worlds last year--the women's single, and the men's and women's pairs--will make the Olympic Team directly on Sunday, joining the 21 camp-selected athletes named last week.

In the other events, listed below, the Trials winners must head to the Final Olympic/Paralympic Qualifier (FOPQR) in Lucerne next month to earn an actual berth on the US team for Paris. Crews will need a top two finish there to qualify for Paris in most events, the lone exception being the PR1 Men's Single. In that event, only the winner earns a Paralympic bid.

The FOPQR-bound events at the Trials are the men's single, double, quad, and light double, along with the women's quad, the PR1 Men's Single, and the PR2 Mixed Double. The Men's Eight, a camp-selected boat announced last week, will also be racing at the FOQPR after missing qualification last year in Belgrade.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by USRowing (@usrowing)

Both scullers from last year's Worlds team hope to reclaim their spot for the Olympic year: Kara Kohler, who took fourth in Belgrade, posted the fastest W1x time Thursday morning, while Finn Putnam, nineteenth in Belgrade, was second to Jake Plihal, the 2023 Pan Am silver medallist, in the M1x time trial.

Jake Plihal

Three crews from the 2023 team are also racing intact here: the men's double, light men's double, and men's quad. In the M2x, Ben Davison and Sorin Koszyk won their time trial, while the 2023 LM2x of Zach Heese and Jimmy McCullough finished second to Sam Melvin, last year's LM1x, and his partner Cooper Tuckerman. The 2023 M4x, which was reselected during the Olympic Selection Camp, narrowly edged out a second US Training Center-Sarasota crew in the single file time trial. The returning quad--Dominique Williams, William Legenzowski, Liam Galloway, and Kevin Cardno--finished just .11 seconds ahead of the quad of Andrew LeRoux, Michael Knippen, Michael Clougher, and Andrew Gaard.

In all three of those events, a successful trip to Lucerne will be needed to book a Paris place. In Belgrade, the M2x and M4x each finished two places away from direct qualification, while the LM2x was 12 places away.

Ben Davison and Sorin Koszyk

New combinations abound in the pairs, racing here for a qualified berth, and in women's quad event, a boat which is not yet qualified. The early markers in the time trials were laid down by Oliver Bub and Billy Bender in the men's pair, Jessica Thoennes and Azja Czajkowski in the women's pair, and the camp-selected women's quad of Lauren O'Connor, Teal Cohen, Emily Delleman, and Grace Joyce.

The two Para events at these Trials will be straight finals on Sunday and did not race on Thursday.

Full results from the Time Trial can be found here, along with the draw for Saturday's semis.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by row2k (@row2k)