Youth Olympic rowers continue at 1000m speed

The repechages of the women’s single sculls were the first to line up. After a great start to racing yesterday, in which the winner of each heat progressed directly to the semifinals, these crews were back again for a second chance and looking to be the top two in their repechage to qualify for the semifinals. The fastest of the was repechages was repechage three, with Bulgarian sculler Desislava Georgieva narrowly winning over Zimbabwe’s Daniela du Toit by just 0.03 seconds. These two clocked the fasted times in all four repechages. They will be joined in the semifinal by France, Croatia, Great Britain, Ireland, Czech Republic and Greece.  

The repechages of the men’s single sculls saw some very close races. Brazil’s Uncas Tales Batista recorded the fastest time in repechage four, finishing in 3:22.24. Argentina followed shortly behind, just edging out Uzbekistan for a spot in the semifinasl. In repechage two and three, the top three crews finished within just one second of each other. Great Britain and New Zealand sprinted to the line just ahead of Tunisia. Poland and Lithuania managed to get their bows in front of France to take the top two spots in repechage three. They will be joined by Australia and Belgium in the semifinals.

After racing in seeding heats yesterday, the heats of the women’s pair got underway today. These athletes were looking to finish first to qualify directly to the A-final and avoid tomorrow’s repechage race. In yesterday’s seeding heats, Canada and Romania were in the same heat and they posted the fasted times. It looked like they would be the crews to beat in today’s heats. Canada got their bow in the lead early on and led the way home in front of China and Germany to qualify directly for the A-final. Romania fought off a challenge from Chile to take the qualifying spot from Heat Two.

Coming through yesterday’s seeding heats with the fastest time in the men’s pair was Turkey and it looked like they might have the edge in today’s heat. But it was Romania who came off the line first and held off the Turkish challenge to finish first in Heat One. Heat Two featured the crew from the Czech Republic in first place. They recently won at the World Rowing Junior Championships and look like they might be set to do the same here at the Youth Olympic Games.

Racing continues tomorrow with the semifinals of the men’s and women’s singles and the repechages of the men’s and women’s pairs. Full results are available here: http://www.worldrowing.com/events/youth-olympic-games-regatta/schedule-results