"It's amazing to be here, and to have accomplished this goal" - reactions from Day 3 in Paris

Day 3 of the 2024 Olympic Regatta saw more history, two more crews end their Olympic campaign, and the eights take to the water for the first time.

Here’s what some of today’s competitors had to say about their racing.

History was made for Argentina when they qualified both their lightweight men’s and lightweight women’s double sculls for the semifinals. Pedro Dickson (LM2x) said they had achieved their ambition today;

 “Our main goal was to get into the semifinal. It’s the first time Argentina qualifies a lightweight double (for the semifinals) and the girls (Argentina women’s team) did it as well. We’ve been working as a team the whole Olympiad and this was the end goal.

“Now we are in the best place, we will be racing in the semifinal, our end goal. We’ll be trying to progress and get our best race ever.”

It was particularly momentous for for Sonia Baluzzo Chiaruzzo and Evelyn Silvestro as it is already the highest ever position achieved by a South American crew in this boat class – the previous highest being 13th. Sonia was over the moon after their race

“It’s amazing to be here, and to have accomplished this goal. We are very, very happy.”

Speaking on how their approach for the semifinal (on Wednesday), Sonia said;

“To race as we raced today, repeat and improve a little bit more. No matter the result, to give it all and finish the race like there’s nothing left.”

Today was the first appearance of the men’s eights. The first heat was won by the United States of America, who booked their place for Paris at the recent Final Olympic Qualification Regatta. Crew member Christian Tabash commented on the culture that has contributed towards their success;

“There’s a lot of momentum in the boat, a lot of excitement, really good energy. Clearly all the pieces are falling into place and we have people to thank for that within our coaching staff, our support staff, our families, our friends.

“The special thing about this boat is that we get along really well, and we’re all just so committed to the same goal that everything is such a blast to do. We train really hard and this is the product.”

Meanwhile, Great Britain took the honours in the second heat and were relatively unchallenged by the second half of the race, so looked set to take the single qualification spot for the final. Jacob Dawson was pleased with how they had handled their race;

“We knew we have to execute a really strong performance to be able to get through to the final. It was all about executing our processes. I know that’s a very boring answer but simpler is better a lot of the time.”

“There’s so much time between now and the final that you could have a flat-out race and still be able to perform on the finals day. It wouldn’t have changed anything for us if we had had to race to the line, we were fully prepared to do that. It just so happened that we executed our first 1500 metres well enough that we were able to enjoy the last 500 a bit more.”

The British crew have come to Paris as reigning World Champions, but Dawson suggested that didn’t put additional pressure on them;

“There’s always expectation but ultimately we’ve just got to keep the focus in the crew and doing the simple things right – and that’s what we’ve done all the way through this Olympiad. We’ve just got to keep going, keep searching for more, but just keep it as simple as possible.”

The racing day concluded with the women’s eights. An impressive looking British crew won their heat ahead of Australia and Heidi Long commented on the strength of the British squad at this regatta;

“It’s been really exciting watching the rest of our squad race. We’re a really close team and we can get confidence from the other crews. Watching the quad and the four and the lightweight doubles earlier in the week just walk away in the third 500 (metres) gave us confidence in our legs that we could do the same.”

The second heat was won in style by Romania. This win was particularly important for the crew given the doubling up within the squad, as Maria Lehaci indicated; 

“It was amazing. We feel very lucky because we skip another race, the repechage. It’s very important for us because we’re doubling up in other boats. Another race would be pretty hard.”