Final Paralympic positions go to adaptive rowers

At the Munich Rowing World Cup adaptive athletes faced their last opportunity to qualify. The top two positions in each race would earn a Paralympic spot.

Raced over 1000m, the boats lined up at the half way point on Munich, Germany’s 1972 Olympic regatta course. Floating canoes with boat holders started the six lanes of adaptive rowers. Six lanes of intensity. Coming third meant failure.

Arms Women’s Single Sculls (AW1x) – Final

A false start due to an equipment problem (a strap on the boat of Filomena Franco of Portugal broke) postponed this race until after the TA2x. Coming back into the blocks all of the rowers were just a little more tense. Emmanuelle Assmann of France got off to a flying start followed closely by Jong Rye Lee of Korea. Assmann could not retain the pace and Lee took over in the lead with Pascale Bercovitch of Israel gaining on the French woman with every stroke.

At the line Lee had earned a Paralympic spot along with Bercovitch. Assmann had faded to third and misses out on qualification.

Jong Rye Lee (KOR) – 1st
“I really didn´t expect to win that race. I just wanted to qualify for the Paralympics. I am so happy that I made it and extremely thankful to my two coaches.”

Pascale Bercovitch (ISR) – 2nd
“I wanted to be first so I am half disappointed about the result. But that is what sport is about. It was a very complicated race because of the false start. We had to wait and started later. But all in all I am very happy to be qualified for the Paralympics. I promised my six-year-old daughter Eden that we are going to be in Beijing and now I can fulfil this promise.”

Arms Men’s Single Sculls (AM1x) – Final

All six athletes had their mind set firmly on the top two spots and there was nothing in it for the first 150m. Then two rowers started to stand out from the field. Oleksandr Petrenko of Ukraine and Antony Bonfim of Brazil were sending out a clear message. These two well-matched boats left the rest of the field in their wake. Barring disaster, the Paralympic qualification spots had been decided.

Both Petrenko and Bonfim are in their first year of competing internationally. Neither of them raced last year at the World Rowing Championships. Both had their own style of racing. Petrenko kept his stroke rate high. Going through the 300m mark he was clocked at 57 strokes per minute. At the line Petrenko had earned first, Bonfim second – taking the two Paralympic spots. Russia’s seasoned racer, Alexey Malyshev found the leaders’ pace too hot and finished third.

Antony Bonfim (BRA) – 2nd
“I am very happy that I qualified for the Paralympics. Now I am going back to Brazil to continue to train very hard because I still have to improve.”

Trunk and Arms Double Sculls (TA2x) – Final

Harald Wimmer of Germany was born in 1940. He started rowing in 1956 as a teenager. Today, now living in retirement, the 67-year-old is off to the Beijing Paralympics. Along with Siglind Koehler, 37 years his junior, the duo led from the start to finish over husband and wife Igor and Mary Kogan of Israel. The Kogans have been racing together at the last two World Rowing Championshiops. They finished outside of Paralympic qualification last year and came to Munich with renewed vigor. Despite an early challenge by Korea and a late challenge by Greece, Germany and Israel seemed to have wo qualifying spots sewn up. Germany and Israel are off to the Paralympic Games. Greece finished third.

Harald Wimmer (GER) – 1st
“The first 500 meters were very hard. But then we managed to dominate the field. We had a very strong finish and now we are so happy to go to Bejing. But there is still a lot of training to do. We’ve just been rowing together since March and we really need to improve our technique.”

Igor Kogan (ISR) – 2nd
“We are so excited that we got the tickets for Bejing. After rowing together for almost two years this is a huge success for us.”

Legs, Trunk and Arms Mixed Coxed Four (LTAMx4+) – Final

The five crews entered had raced for lanes two days ago. China and South Africa finished in the top two spots. The five boats raced again today with renewed enthusiasm. Right from the word go there was very little separating China, Denmark, South Africa and Australia. China had the edge at the start with Australia, Denmark and South Africa neck and neck. Japan had dropped off the pace.

Going through the half-way point China remained in the lead followed extremely closely by Australia with South Africa only a smidgen back. Coxed by Tongtu Hao, China continued to work hard to keep the leading edge. Behind them three boats were fighting with all they had for one remaining qualification spot. Denmark had done it on the very last stroke. An incredibly disappointed South Africa had only just missed out by a mere 17/100th of a second. Barely a bow ball. China and Denmark are off to Beijing.

Kenneth Kronborg (DEN) – 2nd
“It was a very hard race for us. At the 500-metre line we were only on the fourth place. But then I said ‘come on team’ and you could really feel the power which was going through the whole boat. We managed to pull through and became second just with the last strokes. We did and will continue to train very hard because there are many strong teams such as Canada and Germany in Bejing.”