15 Asian nations still in qualification hunt

After the heats and repechages of the Asian Olympic Qualification Regatta being held at the Shanghai Water Sports Centre in China, there are still 15 nations vying for places at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

18 nations entered the regatta at which 6 places in Athens for the Men’s Single Sculls, 5 for the Women’s Single Sculls and 3 each for the Men’s Lightweight Double Sculls and Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls will be decided.  The Shanghai Water Sports Centre is a magnificent, beautiful and well-maintained man-made course just out of Shanghai.  It has a second man-made course right alongside it which is used as a return channel, and has accommodation and all other facilities for competing nations on site.  The weather has been warm and the conditions good ? a slight head breeze blowing for most of the races.

In the women’s single sculls, the heats were won by Yoon Hui Lee (KOR) and Chien Ju Chiang (TPE).  Lee is a strong sculler just 18 years old, with Chiang 5 years older.  In the final they will be joined by repechage winners Elena Usarova (UZB) and Pere Koroba (INA) and the second place getters in the two repechages, Elsie Lim (SIN) and Nikree Phuttharaksa (THA).  The Thai sculler represented Thailand at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and has a battle on her hands to get to her second Olympics.

The lightweight women’s double scull heats were won by two experienced crews of Kahori Uchiyama and Akiko Iwamoto (JPN) and Qian Li and Dongziang Xu (CHN) with the Japanese recording the fastest time.  The crews who qualified through the repechage are Uzbekistan, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia and Vietnam.  These six crews will fight for 3 Olympic places on Saturday.

The men’s lightweight double sculls also saw China’s Jian Yang and Zhifu Zhu winning one heat, and Zahid Ali Parzada and Akram Muhammad the other.  Muhammad is also competing in the men’s single sculls.  China was the fastest double in the heats with a time of 7.28.32.  The other crews in Saturday’s final are Uzbekistan, India, Hong Kong and Vietnam, again with 3 Olympic places at stake.

There were 13 entries in the men’s single sculls necessitating semi-finals to be raced tomorrow Friday.  In the heats the winners were Wang Ming Hui (TPE) in 7.31.05, Hui Su (CHN) in 7.26.73 and Akram Muhammad (PAK) in 7.41.34 ? his second win of the day.  The other semi-finalists coming from the heats are Jose Rodrigues (PHI), Anang Mulyana (INA), Hiu Fung Law (HKG), Paulose Pthomas (IND), Jung Wook Ham (KOR) and Vladimir Chernenko (UZB).  

In today’s repechage, the clear winner was Mikhail Garnik (KAZ) with a great battle for the other places between Lebanon, Vietnam and Iraq. The Iraqi sculler, Hayder Nozad Hama amazed everyone in moving from fourth to second in the last 1000 meters, relegating Phan Thanh Hao of Vietnam to third, and seeing Sharbil Narmour of Lebanon eliminated.   The Iraqi team have understandably been short of training and support over the last year, and spent four days travelling to Shanghai, arriving at midnight the night before the heats. Nozad Hama has only been sculling for four months, but prior to that has won medals at Asian Championships in Kayaking.  Can he now make it into the A final and the Olympic Games? Tomorrow’s semi-final will decide that.