12 Dec 2011
Fall and rise at World Champs
Today’s racing was the last opportunity for many crews to advance and by the end of the day some top crews had succumbed to the pressure, while new crews showed flying colours.
The lightweight men’s and women’s single scullers repechage got two Brazilian boats through to the final. Fabiana Beltrame won the women’s repechage while Ronald De Sousa Brito came third to qualify from the men’s race. The fastest lightweight on the indoor rowing machine, Henrik Stephansen of Denmark came through in first with Alexander Rath of Austria qualifying from second. Julie Nichols of the United States is the other female qualifier.
The repechage of the women’s pair was a race between Australia (Tait and Stanley) and Canada (Guloien and Morin). Their tussle at the head of the field brought them through as the two qualifiers for the final. Surprisingly Camelia Lupascu and Nicoleta Albu of Romania are out. The Romanian duo often double up and race in the women’s eight as well, but they chose to focus on just the pair here at Karapiro. Romania will find themselves in the B-final.
The men’s four had two repechages and finishing times for the four qualifying boats covered just three seconds. The United States (Lanzone, Rummel, Stitt and Stafford) pulled out the fastest time and they looked very in-control in the process. A very happy Greece (Papachristos, Tsilis and the Gkountoulas twins) crossed the line in first in their repechage and France and Italy (the current under-23 World Champions) also qualify for the final. But with success in sport also comes disappointment. Top sweep rowing nations, Germany and Australia just missed out on qualifying despite being up with the pace.
For the men in the quad, Italy and Great Britain proved to be successful. This took until the final sprint when Great Britain, sitting back in fourth, took on the United States and New Zealand to come through into the qualifying spot. Italy finished first.