Cuba’s rowing strength shows at Pan Am Games

By Melissa Bray

	With a view of Christ Redeemer in the background rowers from 14 nations, including Honduras, competed to be the best in the Americas at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At the end of six days of racing Cuba rowed away with five gold medals, one silver and two bronze.
Cuba celebrates

Against the might of rowing nations, the United States and Canada, Cuba held its ground winning gold in the women’s single (Mayra Gonzalez), the men’s double (Janier Concepcion and Yoennis Hernandez), lightweight men’s double (Yunior Perez and Eyder Batista), lightweight women’s double (Yaima Velazquez and Ismaray Marerro) and the men’s quad.

This success came amongst very tight racing which often saw barely a second separating medal times. The lightweight men’s four was one of the most exciting races when Canada beat out the United States by less than a second and then had to wait two hours for umpires to decide the outcome of a protest lodged by the United States claiming Canada had impeded their race. Canada was eventually awarded the gold. Also in this race Cuba just beat Brazil with a photo finish having to decide the bronze medal position.

Finishing second on the overall medals table Canada struck gold in the men’s pair with Olympian Chris Jarvis and Dan Casaca having a tough battle against the United States to earn the gold. The US finished second and Cuba got third. Jarvis is using the Pan Am Games to help with his preparation for the World Rowing Championships in Munich, Germany at the end of August. Munich is the qualification regatta for the Beijing Olympics and Jarvis is hoping to qualify in the pair.

Canada also earned gold in the women’s quad and, as previously mentioned, the exciting lightweight men’s four race.

Argentina’s Santiago Fernandez continued to shine in the single finishing ahead of Yoennis Hernandez of Cuba with Marcelus Silva of Brazil taking third. Behind Cuba’s Gonzalez in the women’s single, Argentina’s Maria Gabriela Best took silver with El Salvador’s newest rowing star, Camila Vargas earning bronze. All of these scullers will be hoping to qualify for the Beijing Olympics and will get an opportunity in November at the Latin American continental qualification regatta – also to be held in Rio.

Rio’s Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon rowing course had unpredictable conditions throughout the week. On the final day of racing rowers had to deal with a some choppy water conditions but the athletes handled the conditions well stating that this was not out-of-the-ordinary rowing conditions.

Close to Rio’s famed Copacabana Beach, the rowing course is also being used for flat water canoeing and the water ski competition.

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