Sunday saw the US winning two women's medals: silver in the eight and bronze in the double--both with gritty come-from-sixth-place efforts that put them on the podium. In the women's single final, Kara Kohler took fourth by inches over Bulgaria’s Desislava Angelova (see photo here) as she finished a steady charge of her own in the second half. Then, in the the last A Final of the regatta, the US men's eight finished sixth, a result which means a trip to--and through--the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta next spring will be the only way a men's eight will race in Paris for the USA next year.
The US did secure eight Olympic places, plus two Paralympic spots, and won six medals: four Olympic boat class medals--three silver and a bronze--two silver Para medals, and the bronze by Sophia Luwis in the light women's single.
We have a quick summary of the final US placings posted here.
The Dutch led the overall medal tally with six golds and three silvers--the silver count put them ahead of GB's six golds, 1 silver and 2 bronze on the table. The final silver that did the trick came in the men's eight, which snuck in between winners GB and the Aussie crew that upset the Brits at the Lucerne World Cup. When row2k asked Jan Van Der Bij, the Dutch three man, about getting into the mix for the podium, he said, "It's like football: you have to play the first half well, otherwise you might end up taking penalties."
Second only to the Dutch on the women's side, Romania picked up two golds, a silver, and two bronze, with six athletes earning two apiece when the doubled up pair and four won in the eight.
Romania's Simona Radis and Ancuta Bodnar, the Olympic champions, won a second Worlds title in the double and when we asked Radis--who hot-seated from the double to the eight last year to win two golds in less than an hour--if she was glad she was not doubling up this year, she actually said she wasn't:
"I'm sad because I'm not in the eight right now, because I like to race in the eight," said Radis. "It's a speedy boat, and I like the speed a lot. It's a little bit sad [today] but for sure you will see me in the eight at the Olympic Games."
This year's schedule did put the two races much closer in the program, but while that did not work to get Radis a seat in the 'speedy boat' it did mean that the Romanian eight was just pulling into the medals dock as their anthem was playing for Radis and Bodnar. The same thing happened for the Ukranian Para team: the ceremony for Roman Polianskyi in the PR1 M1x started just as Anna Sheremet came in to get ready to the bronze medal she won in the PR1 W1x, behind Birgit Skarstein and Nathalie Benoit.
Zeidler Rules the 1x Roost
Ollie Zeidler looked well nigh untouchable and certainly seems to have dialed in his sculling, and winning, ahead of his second shot at the Olympics.
"It was a very fast race, especially the first 1000," Zeidler said. "I looked on my strokecoach and saw that I was very fast even when I was not pulling full force in the second 500. I was a bit disappointed actually in the third 500 that I was not that fast anymore, but maybe it was the price I needed to pay for the fast first 1000. It was tight, the last 15 strokes were very tough, but in the end it worked out well."
While it was again a Dutchman giving chase for silver, this year it was Simon Van Dorp in the single--last year's silver medal single sculler, Melvin Twellaar was back in the double this year, winning another of the golds that the Netherlands was scooping up.
"The coaches wanted to see what I had in the single, what kind of steps I could make," said Van Dorp, who has been mostly a quads and eights guy. "It's been great trying to figure out the single. It's a really lovely boat to race after having done the eight and the quad for such a long time. It really felt like a big adventure to see where I could end up, and to end up with a medal is really cool.
"So far, it's been pretty easy racing the single because I've just been trying to go into everything without too many expectations. Just trying to go as fast as possible. I know I have a pretty good start and I've been very quick in training, so that gave me some confidence.
"At the same time, I didn't know what anyone else was capable of. So it was just taking it one race at a time. Seeing how fast I could go and trying to improve every race. That last part is a lot more easy in the single than in a big boat, because you don't have to have to have all your heads aligned. You just need to know yourself and know what you need."
The bronze went to another relative newcomer in the boat class, New Zealand's Thomas Mackintosh, who held off the Olympic champ Stefanos Ntouskos of Greece by inches to claim the medal.
Mackintosh is one of four members of the golden Kiwi eight racing here in Belgrade, and we asked hime about carrying on the legacy of what he and that crew accomplished in Tokyo.
"I guess what we did in Tokyo was, I'll call it unprecedented," he said. "We're probably the only crew to have gone to the last chance qualifier and through the repechage, and we were third 500 meters into that final, but we still managed to win. Going through that adversity and the trials and tribulations of trying to make an eight go fast, taught us the golden nuggets of what it is to be an oarsmen. So I'm really proud to be part of that legacy. And hopefully I can start creating my own in the single scull."
NED, NZL, AUS Again in W1x
The W1x podium was the same as last year--Florijn, Twigg, and Rigney--and the three shared a nice moment on the dock before coming over to talk to the press.
Twigg, the current Olympic champ who qualified for her fifth Games here in Belgrade, mentioned that she has not finished outside the top four since 2009: "to be standing amongst great athletes for the last 15 years is such an honor," she said.
"There’s still a few of the old guard still hanging in there, but there’s really bright up and coming athletes and, for me, I'm pleased that I've got one more Games. We all know that these youngsters have got amazing futures ahead of them and they're really lovely girls as well, which is great for the sport.
"Some times I question myself," Twigg admitted, when asked about her post-Tokyo comeback. "At the beginning of the regatta, I was thinking to myself, 'What are you doing here? Why are you putting yourself through this? But as the regatta builds and I get that confidence and I know that I am in the hunt, the enjoyment’s still there. I'm also excited about having a whole lot of 'lasts' that I'll be taking off in the next 10 months."
Australia's Tara Rigney won bronze again, but qualified for the Olympics for the first time as a single sculler--in Tokyo she was in the Aussie double.
"I thought the depth of the sculling field last year was impressive, but this year it just stepped up," she said. "I’ve also never been in an Olympic qualifying semi and that was easily the most nervous I've ever been for a race. Once you get to the A Final, it’s a clean slate so you go in there and I always think you got nothing to lose because that’s what it is. Obviously it's intimidating, but it's fun."
Men's Doubles Returning to Form
Belgrade saw two historically good doubles get back on to the podium a year out from Paris: the Tokyo silver medalists from the Netherland, Stefan Broenink and Melvin Twellaar, took the win in their reunited lineup and Croatia's Sinkovic brothers are back in the medals with a silver, after a very rare miss last year.
"Last year we were blown up physically, that was the problem, and we said we had to change something within," said Martin Sinkovic. "Today we are happy with the second place. The Netherlands guys were really better today, and we want to hats off, congratulate them. They were impressive and we'll do everything to beat them next year."
In for a bronze was another crew from the strong Irish squad here in Belgrade: with just 12 entries, Ireland qualified six Olympic and one Paralympic crew, then collected two golds and two bronze, enough for sixth on the medals table.
Daire Lynch, bow man of the Irish double, talked a bit about the Irish team's performance this week:
"Our first race was a bit heavy because we did our last hard session maybe three days before the heats, but then we just felt better and better throughout the regatta. We got off to a very rocky start in all the [Irish] boats, like the quad and the four, and we thought, 'geez, have we timed this poorly?' but then we see every crew is getting better and better and especially the pair because we train with them a lot. So the fact they went about yesterday [and medaled] we knew we were good."
Men's Eight Closes the Show
World Rowing does rotate the schedule year-to-year so there is some variation in which blue riband event gets pride of place at the end of the last day, and this year, there the men’s eights got their turn. Once the eights were done thundering down the course, it was expectations met for the British, a happy surprise for the Dutch eight in second, and a less happy one for the Aussies in third--who'd beaten the Brits in Lucerne and took a crack today, only to have the Dutch, laying down the fastest split of the whole race in the last quarter, pip them for silver.
"We were definitely trying to go for the win," said Aussie four man Timothy Masters, "but the British crew, to their credit, were very strong, especially in the third five hundred. They showed that they're a top class act. Our goal was just to try and win today, and we found ourselves in last 500 realizing, 'oh my god, it's a real race coming up behind us.' But, that's fine: I'd rather I'd rather go for the win than go for a placing. "
The Australian crew is a newer boat, with a number of younger guys in the mix with an eye towards Paris.
"I can speak as a younger guy in the boat," said five seat Jack Robertson. "We've got guys like Tim here, who have been on the World Championship Circuit for years now, so there's plenty of things us young guys are learning from Tim, the stroke man, Angus Widdicombe, and Josh Hicks in the two seat. We're all still coming up to speed with the standard you see in the World Championships and I think our learning curves been pretty steep. Our trajectory has been pretty steep as well, so we're only building towards next year and it's a pretty exciting process."
Back out in front of the Aussies, the GB eight picked right back up were it had been for every race except that final in Lucerne: out in front, setting the pace--and they had enough in hand even when the race closed back up on them in the final sprint
"We always believe that if we put down our best performance, we're going to be in the mix," said Tom Ford, the stroke. "There's a lot of there's a lot of strong crews in that field and at the end of the day we can only affect our own speed. So that was our main thing, to focus on ourselves, not anyone else."
"We started moving at about halfway and didn't really have a big push, added Charles Elwes, the five man. "Our base pace is just very consistent and that's what we work on all the time: that middle 1k, just flat pasting the whole thing. When everyone else came off a bit, we just kept going. I think that's a testament to all the other guys in the boat and the work we put in."
It must be said that there was disappointment in this race for the US, which trailed the whole way in sixth, the one place you don't want to be in when it is just top five to Paris, and a fair bit of redemption for Romania and Germany in fourth and fifth. Germany did not even make the final last year, for the first time in a long time, so to come through the reps and earn a place for Paris might go a long way to salvaging Germany's regatta here. Through Saturday, Germany had only two Olympic crews qualified; today they added four more, plus a third and fourth Paralympic spot.
Last Bit of Qualification Business
Ahead of the medals, the final bits of qualification business got settled in the day's B Finals, and as we've said before, these can be brutal affairs.
Case in point: Bulgarian sculler Kristian Vasilev crabbed with just a few strokes to go, letting Lithuania's Dovydas Nemeravicius slide past to claim the final M1x spot. Vasilev crossed the line laying down in his shell, utterly gutted.
There is also plenty of joy for those who make it, which today included a hometown favorite, Jovana Arsic of Serbia, who grabbed the final W1x spot in front of many happy Serbians.
The winner of that B Final was Austrian Olympian Magdelena Lobnig, who talked afterwards about her win, and her sister, whose injuries scrubbed their double entry and put Lobnig back in the single:
"It’s a huge relief for myself. I had quite a lot of psychological stress in this week. Coming from a big boat in a small boat is quite a challenge, but I could bring it to the point where it counts. Third Olympics. I race for us both, I hope she’s well soon and we can jump in the double again."
Notes From the Course
So What Happens if... There was a DNS in the first A Final of the day, the PR1 M1x, when Australian Erik Horrie had to withdraw for medical reasons; WorldRowing told us that the sculler still technically ‘finishes’ sixth overall, having earned a top six placing by making the A Final, so Australia will keep the Paralympic qualifier spot.
Is the Venue Sinking? The water level was a bit higher every day this week, we are guessing to make it easier for boats to land for medals and qualifier interviews since it not a dock, but rather a concrete tarmac.
Whole Lotta Yankee Fans in Serbia - We have noticed that wearing a Yankees hat with the embroidered NY on the front is a ‘thing’ in Europe now; we’ve seen a few/day every day this week in the grandstands.
And At Least One Red Sox Fan... Speaking of baseball hats, WorldRowing video manager Florian Schnellinger had three different hats for North American sports teams; the first was a Red Sox hat, then a Maple Leafs hat, then a Tampa Bay Lightning hat. He has purchased them on various rowing trips to the US; for example, he purchased the Lightning hat after the 2017 Worlds in Sarasota when he went to a game after the racing had ended.
Good Catch - Emma Twigg threw her flower bouquet toward her supporters, and it was caught by...her wife!
First Step’s a Doozy - Dutch silver medalist single sculler Simon Van Dorp fell into the water while getting back into his boat after the medal ceremony; it is the Dutch way after all. Although there were plenty of Dutch wins this year – they topped the medals table – there were no swimmers, so Van Dorp helped make up the difference.
Brutal Symmetry - Check the times for the men’s eight, there is a brutal symmetry to be found; ignoring the tenths of a second, they went
5:24
5:25
5:26
5:27
5:28
5:29
Quick Work, whew - Three scullers flipped today, and the rescue teams were on it; according to the time stamps on our photos, when the Uzbekistan para sculler went into the water, the scuba diver got to him in nine seconds, and they had him on a launch in 31 seconds.
Two Medals...and a Ring - Not a bad weekend for Romania's Magdalena Rusu: gold in the eight, silver in the four, and a very romantic proposal in front of the entire Romanian team on the return dock.
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