Press Release: Day five review

China began racing brilliantly in semifinal one of the Women's Single Sculls with Xiuyun Zhang crossing the line first and qualifying for Saturday's Final along with Michelle Guerrette (USA) in second and Mirka Knapkova (CZE) in third. Semifinal two was a showdown between Belarus's two-time Olympic Champion Ekaterina Karsten-Khodotovitch and Bulgaria's Rumyana Neykova who owns Olympic silver and bronze in this event. Going neck and neck, Neykova had taken the lead by 1500m but in the final strokes Karsten again took over, winning by a very slight margin. The Neykova-Karsten rivalry has been going on since the 1990 World Rowing Junior Championships and at the Sydney Games in 2000 only one hundredth of a second separated Olympic gold from silver – eight years on, the two female scullers are still at it. Poland's Julia Michalska beat New Zealand's Emma Twigg for the third qualifying position by five hundredths of a second.

In the Men's Single Sculls, Lassi Karonen of Sweden, who is competing at his first Olympic Games, qualified for his first Olympic Final by winning semifinal one ahead of reigning Olympic Champion Olaf Tufte of Norway and Belgium's Tim Maeyens in third. Semifinal two was no walk over for three-time consecutive World Champion Mahe Drysdale. His closest rival from the Czech Republic Ondrej Synek was not intimidated. Alan Campbell of Great Britain also believed he had what it took to challenge the Kiwi sculler. At the line, Synek took first, Campbell second and Drysdale took the third qualifying spot, but only just – Greek single sculler Ioannis Christou was five hundredths of a second behind in fourth.

In the Men's Pair, Canada's Dave Calder and Scott Frandsen qualified for the Olympic Games a few weeks ago at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Poznan, Poland. These two Canadians crossed the line first in semifinal one ahead of New Zealand and South Africa. Reigning World Champions Drew Ginn and Duncan Free from Australia won the second semifinal convincingly, followed by the United States and Germany. The time difference between Canada's win in semifinal one and Australia's in semifinal two is less than a second.

Australia's David Crawshay and Scott Brennan never won gold in the Men's Double Sculls, but winning their heat last Saturday with the fastest qualifying time of three heats must have boosted their confidence – today they took first again ahead of Slovenia and New Zealand in semifinal one. New Zealand's Rob Waddell and Nathan Cohen were expected to put on a spectacular show, but just qualified in third place, behind reigning World Champions Slovenia who took second. In semifinal two, the French were in total control: Adrien Hardy is the reigning Olympic Champion and since Athens has changed his crew mate – he and Jean-Baptiste Macquet have not yet made a podium this year but today the duo who also hold the World Best Time were in top form, leading from the start and winning convincingly ahead of Estonia and Great Britain.

The Men's Four is one of Great Britain's top boats, but before the Games results were inconsistent. Their performance today in Shunyi – a win in semifinal one -indicates they have come to defend the Olympic title won by their predecessors in Athens – only Steve Williams remains from 2004. Second place went to Australia and third to France. A fourth-place finish for World Champions New Zealand in the same semifinal relegates them to the B Final. In semifinal two, Italy (2007 silver) and the Netherlands (2007 bronze) were in for a shocker and never made it into the top three positions -Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Germany qualified from this semifinal for Saturday's A Final. This means none of the three medallists from 2007 have made it to the Olympic Final.

On Thursday 14 August semifinals are scheduled in the Lightweight Women's Double Sculls (LW2x), Lightweight Men's Double Sculls (LM2x), Lightweight Men's Four (LM4-) and Men's Quadruple Sculls (M4x). B Finals will also be held for rankings 7 to 12 in the Group A boat classes.

For more information:
FISA media officer
Débora Feutren
Mobile: +41 79 793 5600
E-mail: debora.feutren@fisa.org

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