Men's Eight
Korzo's crew does it again, and this time they have company: in a heater of a rep, the Netherlands eight broke their own world record of 5:23.15, set in Lucerne this year, going 5:22.80. The Romanians went with them, coming in under the old world record as well in a time of 5:23.06.
"The guys can do this in the tailwind, and I may have to think about the rig, " Korzeniowski said after the race. The crew fared far less well in the heat, which featured a headwind. He said he didn't ask the crew to do anything special, just to row their usual race, and put in some technical calls that he thought are guaranteed to give his crew some speed. "They didn't do anything special, just normal race; just don't fuck it up," Korzo said in characteristic fashion. "we made a technical call, to try for this wide grip feeling, because i know that when we get this wide grip, this stretch in the outside arm, the legs begin to go down, and we find more speed." Korzeniowski also asked his crew to put their bowball ahead at the 1000 meter marker "even if it was only a few centimeters. I thought if we could do this, we could break them after that." The crew waited until about 1050 gone to do it, then never trailed again.
The pace proved too hot for the Aussie eight, which led to the 1000, and was less than a second off the lead at the 1500, but fell back to more than open water behind the leaders, failing to make the A final. Almost stunningly, the defending silver medal German eight placed fourth, headed for the B final.
In the other rep, the Brits won almost handily, if in a slower time, but the Italians posted a 1:18 last 500, almost 4 seconds faster than anyone else in the rep, coming from 1.5 seconds behind the Canadian eight to 1.5 seconds ahead, sending the host country's flagship eight to the B final. Yow.
Women's eight
In another heater, in which the crews crossed the 1000 in a thick pack, and where only five seconds separated first from fifth, with Germany, Canada, Netherlands, and Australia going through. However, the winning time was only 6:05.98, seven seconds off world record time, in a race that took place only 7 minutes before the world record men's eight rep.
Lightweight Men's Double
Steve Tucker and Conal Groom had analyzed the progression, and found that placing second might get them into the best semi. Unfortunately, the Finnish crew was obviously thinking the same thing, and it almost became what Charley Butt called a "paddling contest, which we decided we didn't want to get into." In the meantime, the double from Hong Kong was charging from behind, only a half-length behind the Finnish crew, and the US double didn't want to take the chance on trying to tuck their boat into that small space, and went ahead and won the rep.
Lightweight men's four
This crew seems back in form after a disastrous heat in which there is now some conjecture that the crew may have picked up some weeds that slowed their final thousand dramatically. Today, the crew went 5:50, so the theory has some teeth.
As the crew doesn't have very much racing experience, stroke Bill Carlucci noted that it might not be a bad thing to go through the reps. There's more from Carlucci in the NBC story I'm filing today, which I'll link up later.
Note that times are tough to compare in this event, as the first rep was postponed after the AUS four had some boat damage, and the rep was raced at the end of the program, when the wind had come up considerably.
Men's Quad
The quad qualified easily, placing second some six seconds ahead of the next finisher, but had a scare when one of the crew members caught a full crab early in the race. The crew and coach were disappointed, but noted that they got the job of qualifying for the semi taken care of, and were ready to dig in on Friday.
Other racing
The US has already qualified in all other events today: The LW women's double, the women's quad, the women's eight, and the LW men's pair.
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