Cuba Rules the Pan American Medal Podium

Norwood and Taylor win gold in the double for Canada
© Getty Images

The rowing regatta of the fourteenth edition of the Pan American Games recently concluded on the Caribbean Island of the Dominican Republic and it was a full contingent of Cubans who ruled the three final days of racing.

Maybe it was Cuba’s last minute construction help that set the nation up to dominate racing. Possibly it was Cuba’s closeness to the Dominican Republic that enabled them to acclimatise to the temperature and humidity. Perhaps it was the command of the nation’s top male sculler, Yoennis Hernandez who left with three gold medals.

The nature of the sport essentially requires a 2 kilometre long liquid playing field wide enough to fit at least six boats across and flat enough that wind does not disrupt the race. This site was found 20 kilometres from the main games centre of capital city, Santo Domingo at Rincon Lake deep in tropical forest surrounding. The lake was developed to a rowing racing standard and on August 4, fifteen different nations converged for the opening heats.

Moving through the standard FISA progression system, athletes raced in heats, had a second chance in repechages and finished with finals over the last three days.

Cuba and the United States entered the biggest teams with Cuba finishing well on top of the medals tally taking away a top three finish in all but one event and securing gold in nine of the fourteen races. Number two finishers, the United States ended with nine medals including one gold and Canada was third equal with Brazil.

The women’s single was won by Cuba’s Gonzalez
© Getty Images

Cuba’s winning included a clean sweep of the single events with Olympian Yoennis Hernandez winning the men’s single, the women’s single going to Mayra Gonzalez who finished seventh at the Sydney Olympics and Ismaray Marrero taking out the lightweight women’s single.

Hernandez raced an impressive three finals winning gold in all three ? the single, double and quad. Marrero impressed by winning gold in both the lightweight single and lightweight quad while in the lightweight men’s double and quad, Junior Perez and Armando Arrechavaleta also won two golds.

Canada’s Fiona Milne competed in two events racing the lightweight double to gold and the open women’s single to silver while her doubles partner, Gen Meredith won a second medal, a silver, in the lightweight single. Meredith followed the tradition of her country’s hockey team by keep a ?lucky loonie? in the boat with her, but dropped it in the water before the medal ceremony. Fortunately this was after her last race of the regatta.

Coxswain of the United States men’s eight, John Stilling at 48 years old had last won a Pan American gold medal in 1983 and returned after a 20 year hiatus to win gold again with a crew made up of the men’s four, pair and reserve pair. This was the United States’ only gold.

Medals went to eight different nations and, in a first for the Dominican Republic, the host country had five boats in the A-final races.

Sebastian Tula, FISA’s development consultant for Central America, said afterwards, ?the weather was perfect and so was the support from the countries.? Tula also noted the tremendous contribution by Ricardo Ibarra, FISA’s development consultant for Latin America, towards the success of this event.

The Pan American Games continue over this week with the United States currently leading the medals table ahead of Cuba and Brazil.

Results Summary

Event              First                Second          Third
LW1X             CUB                CAN                USA
M1X                CUB                ARG                USA
W1X               CUB                CAN                USA
M2-                 ARG                BRA                CUB
W2X               CAN                USA                CHI
LW2X             CAN                CUB                USA
LM2X              CUB                BRA                ARG
M2X                CUB                BRA                USA
LM4-               CHI                  CAN                CUB
M4-                 CUB                USA                BRA
M4X                CUB                URU                BRA
LM4X              CUB                ARG                BRA
LW4X             CUB                USA                MEX
M8+                USA                CAN                CUB