A flurry of impromptu flower arranging at the world cup this morning heralded a visit by HRH Princess Anne in her IOC capacity. You can always tell when a royal visit is imminent, as large pot plants and flower arrangements start appearing where previously there were only bare concrete and garbage bins.
GB rowing’s top brass turned out to meet and greet, as did the regatta’s team of cleaning ladies, who arrived in the admin centre shortly after the Princess, complete with buckets and mops, and were quickly asked to move...
The HRH’s visit provided a temporary distraction from the action on the water which, at the time, was the women’s single semi finals, won by Knapkova (CZE) and Karsten (BLR) respectively.
In the men’s single, Iztok Cop (SLO) won his semi-final comfortably; Olympic champion Olaf Tufte coming third and failing to make the A final, despite being in second place with 500m to go. Cop meets Hacker (GER) and Synek (CZE) in what promises to be a closely fought final tomorrow.
Two of the Cuban scullers have also made it through to their respective A finals. Heranadex Arruez came second behind Synek in men’s 1x and Ismaray Marrero Aria came third in her semi-final in women’s LW1x. (Rumour has it that the Cuban contingent are offering a good deal on cigars and rum, but we haven’t managed to check out their supplies yet.)
The other arrival causing disruption at the course today was the BBC, who will be televising highlights from the finals on Saturday. After installing cameras and screens around the venue and insisting on moving the regatta’s commentary aerials, the last thing I heard was that they were scratching their heads over a couple of "dead zones" on the course where they simply can’t get any reception.
Back on the lake, in the men’s pairs the USA crew (Blomquist and Liwski) came fifth in their heat and will race in the B final tomorrow. Both Canadian pairs made the A final where they will race the Croatian Skelin brothers, the GB West non-brothers, a Chinese crew and the Egyptian pair of Gomaa and Yehia.
Canada also have a LM2x in the A final, after Matthew Jensen and Daniel Parsons came second in their semi-final.
We finally saw some eights today, but with a limited number of entries, both women’s and men’s events had "Friday finals," where they race for lanes in tomorrow’s official final.
In the four boat women’s event, the Chinese crew dominated, but in the men’s six boat race, although Germany came home first, only a length separated the first four crews.
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