Preview day 5: First finals and tough semifinals

The women’s pair is set to go at 11:50am (GMT) with Great Britain firmly behind their crew of Heather Stanning and Helen Glover. If Stanning and Glover win this race they will go down in history as being the first ever Olympic Champions in British women’s rowing.  Australia’s Sarah Tait and Kate Hornsey will not make it easy for the British duo and neither will two-time World Champions, New Zealand (Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown). Watch out too for reigning Olympic Champions, Romania’s Georgeta Andrunache and Viorica Susanu who may perform a stunning comeback.

The women’s quadruple sculls has been weighted towards Ukraine this season as they arrived in London unbeaten. The quad is Ukraine’s priority boat and if they win gold it will be the first ever gold in rowing for their country. Ukraine won their heat earlier in this regatta, with Germany winning the other heat. As Germany has put their top four women sculler into this event, their expectations will be high especially as they are the reigning World Champions. It is thus likely the rest of the field will have to race for bronze.

At 12:30pm (GMT) 48 athletes will be pushing six boats with all of their might. The depth and history of talent behind all of these boats is phenomenal. The United States have won the most Olympic golds in the eight although they come to London on the back foot having qualified only recently at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta. Canada owns the title of reigning Olympic Champions but their recent form is a little inconsistent. The Netherlands often sneak through to medal at the Olympics including gold in 1996. Diederik Simon of the Netherlands remains in the boat this time from that 1996 crew.

But the stand-out boat must be Germany. The Germans have an unbeaten winning streak dating back to 2009 and their form in the heats indicated that they are on target to finish off this Olympic quadrennial with gold success. Great Britain finished with silver at the Beijing Olympics and have spent the last two World Rowing Championships in second, desperate to take gold.

Preceding the finals, three semifinal boat classes are being raced. The men’s quadruple sculls takes to the water at 10:40am (GMT) with semifinal one featuring Croatia, the unbeaten crew this season. This crew formed in 2009 and their line-up has remained stable ever since. They became World Champions in 2010 and are consistently in the medals. They are likely to find tough competition from 2004 Olympic Champions, Russia.

The second semifinal sees reigning Olympic Champions Poland facing 2011 World silver medallists, Germany. Poland have been off pace in the last year but have the drive and experience to step up. Expect a great race too from Estonia. With Olympic medallist Tonu Endrekson in the boat this crew has shown that qualifying at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in May has not hindered their London preparation.

The men’s pair semifinal one sees perhaps the two strongest crews in this boat class facing each other. Canada’s Scott Frandsen and David Calder go up against the seemingly unbeatable Hamish Bond and Eric Murray of New Zealand. Bond and Murray have already established themselves in the history books after setting a World Best Time and Olympic Best Time in the heats. They have turned this boat class into a race for silver for everyone else.

Without New Zealand in the race semifinal two of the men’s pair opens up to opportunity. From results, Greece’s Gkountoulas twins have the best showing. They are regularly in the medals at the World Cup level and finished fourth in the World last year. With the crowd support behind Great Britain, the young duo of George Nash and William Satch may surprise. Watch out too for the very experienced Nikola Stojic of Serbia. At his fourth Olympic Games, Stojic is racing with the youthful Nenad Bedik.

At 11:20am (GMT) the men’s single sculls semifinals open with an incredibly tough semifinal one. New Zealand’s Mahe Drysdale, the five-time World Champion is likely to be the one to beat with Olympic medallist Marcel Hacker of Germany pressing him hard. Both Cuba (Angel Fournier Rodriguez) and Lithuania (Mindaugas Griskonis) have shown to be top racers when they put it all together and both have the ability to surprise. Then there is Olympic Champion Olaf Tufte of Norway. Tufte has been struggling with form recently and will have to perform the race of his life to get through from this semifinal.

The second semifinal in the men’s single will be a much more sedate affair with 2010 World Champion and Beijing silver medallist, Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic likely to be at the head of the field. But Great Britain’s Alan Campbell had the fastest qualifying time coming through from the quarterfinals and he looks in fine form here at Eton Dorney. Watch out too for Tim Maeyens of Belgium who set an Olympic Best Time earlier in this regatta and is rowing with renewed confidence.