Short rest, back for the repechages - World Cup day 1

The men’s single competitors also returned for quarterfinals. All to determine who would make it to the semifinal round.

Lightweight Women Single Scull (LW1x) – Repechage

Returning and weighing in for a second time today four repechages of this event lined up aiming for a top two finish to keep their hopes of going to the final alive. The fastest qualifying time went to France2, Coralie Ribeil in repechage one. Ribeil has been rowing internationally ever since she competed as a junior in 2004. Also from her repechage Orla Hayes of Ireland will advance to the semifinal. Ireland adds Orla Duddy to the semifinal list after she beat the very accomplished Daniela Reimer of Germany in repechage two. Reimer earns a spot as well. A three boat tussle in repechage three finished with Belgium’s Evi Geentjens just ahead of Marie Gottlieb of Denmark. Finland was the unlucky third and will contest the C Final. Great Britain’s Andrea Dennis scored the second fastest qualifying time in repechage four to advance along with Coralie Simon of France.

Lightweight Men’s Single Scull (LM1x) – Repechage

Four repechages and a top two finish the requirement opened with Alisdair Leighton-Crawford of Great Britain in the lead. Leighton-Crawford had a strong battle this morning in his heats but ended up finishing in second. His stamina served him well in the repechage and he moves on with second placed Arnaud Pornin of France.

In repechage two Tim Heijbrock of the Netherlands took to the lead and, unlike in his heat, refused to be overtaken. He qualifies with the fastest time along with Estonia’s Valeri Prosvirnin from second. As the sun came out Zhenggang Song of China earned a spot in the semifinal by winning repechage three. Ireland’s Liam Molloy, part of his country’s under 23 squad, qualifies from second. Spreading the contestants around the world Hong Kong China’s Rolandas Kazlauskas and Portugal’s Luis Ahrens Teixeira take the final semifinal spots by finishing first and second respectively in the fourth and final repechage.

Women’s Single Scull (W1x) – Repechage

The very accomplished Olympic silver medallist Peggy Waleska won repechage one, earned the fastest qualifying time and advances to the semifinal. She takes Leen Blondelle of Belgium and Regina Naunheim of Switzerland with her. Belgium added a second qualifier from repechage two Annick de Decker coming in first ahead of Ulla Hvid of Denmark. Norway’s Tine Schoeyen also qualifies.

Men’s Single Scull (M1x) – Quarterfinal

The first of four quarterfinals opened with Olympic Champion Olaf Tufte of Norway taking the lead after an average starting pace. Tufte comes into the 2007 season as a new father and at the first Rowing World Cup he finished fourth. The Norwegian will be wanting to step up a notch at this regatta. Switzerland’s Andre Vonarburg finished second ahead of Cuba’s Angle Fournier who also qualifies.
The customary fast starting Alan Campbell of Great Britain did it again in quarterfinal two leaving the rest of the field to battle for second and third. Sweden’s number two sculler who is coming into his second international season, Paul Rosenquist finished second with Liang Zhang of China just a smidgen behind in third. An unlucky Dirk Lippits of the Netherlands will be denied the opportunity to compete for the Holland Beker Trophy after finishing fourth.

A clean race by last year’s silver medallist Marcel Hacker of Germany in quarterfinal three gave him the lead for the entire race with the best of Argentina, Santiago Fernandez overtaking Sjoerd Hamburger of the Netherlands in the second half of the race. All three scullers advance to the semifinal.

World Champion Mahe Drysdale won his heat but was not able to hold off Lassi Karonen of Sweden in the fourth quarterfinal. Karonen takes first, Drysdale second and winner of the first Rowing World Cup, Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic taking the third and final semifinal spot.

Women’s Pair (W2-) – Repechage

A second chance for the women in the pair gave Germany’s Lenka Wech and partner Nadine Schmutzler a spot in the semifinal. They will be joined by Great Britain and China3 in the semifinal.

The Dutch moved another boat up a stage in repechage two with Nienke Kingma and Helen Tanger doing the entire race from the front of the field. Also qualifying from this repechage was Denmark and the fourth German entry.

Men’s pair (M2x) – Repechage

Three boats qualifying from two repechages opened with the new Dutch crew of Olaf van Andel and Jozef Klassen leading for the entire race. This left the Czech Republic and Poland to wage a very close battle for the second and third spots. In a photo finish the Czech Republic can claim a more central lane in the semifinal with a second place finish and Poland qualify from third. Slovenia had a very slow start in the second repechage but pushed back to take the lead in the final sprint of the race. Gregor Novak and Bostjan Bozic of Slovenia finished eighth at the first Rowing World Cup and are establishing themselves as a duo to be reckoned with. They go to the semifinal along with Poland1 and Great Britain.

Women’s double (W2x) – Repechage

Russia’s new combination of the experienced Irina Fedotova and her younger partner Yulia Kalinovskaya look to be improving the more they race. They soon found the lead in this lone repechage and did enough to stay ahead of Poland and Estonia who were going head to head down the course just behind the Russians. All three boats go on to the semifinal.
Sanna Sten and Minna Nieminen. The New Zealanders remained in the lead with Finland qualifying from second and China 2.

Men’s double (M2x) – Repechage

Injury has meant that New Zealand had to fly in replacement Joseph Sullivan at the very last minute to join with Nathan Cohen. Jet lag doesn’t seem to be a problem for Sullivan who, with Cohen took repechage one by storm. Despite a bit of a tussle with Belgium, Sullivan and Cohen prevailed taking first and qualifying for the semifinal. Stijn Smulders and Christophe Raes of Belgium also advance. The second repechage saw Vaclav Chalupa and Milan Dolecek junior of the Czech Republic making no mistakes. A bad heat meant this duo had to race again and they did it by leading from start to finish. The Czech’s advance to the semifinal with the fastest qualifying time. Samuel Stitt and Matt Hughes of the United States also advance after holding second for the entire race and pressing the Czech’s.

Men’s Four (M4-) – Repechage

After Germany1 withdrew due to injury it became up to Germany2 to hold the fort. They did just this by winning repechage one over Denmark and Australia in a steady but close race. All three boats advance to the semifinal. Poland scored the fastest qualifying time by finishing first in the second repechage. They were pushed by Croatia which includes winter and summer Olympian Igor Boraska. Egypt2 also got in on the action by outsprinting Croation to finish second. All three boats qualify while Egypt1 were disqualified for having an underweight boat.

Lightweight Women’s Double Sculls (LW2x) – Repechage

The first of two repechages opened with Poland1 and Poland2 pacing each other. But at the front of the field it was the new United States combination of Wendy Tripician and Jana Heere who were setting the pace. All three boats advance with the US able to boast the fastest qualifying time.

Repechage two was won by Ireland’s Sinead Jennings and Niamh NiCheilleacher who are in their second season together with the aim of the Beijing Olympics. They remained ahead of Norway and China3 who also qualify for the semifinal.

Lightweight Men’s Double Sculls (LM2x) – Repechage

Four repechages meant a top two position was necessary for advancement and Slovakia’s Maros Sloboda and Lukas Babac opened up the proceedings by leading repechage one from start to finish. This left Chile to overtake Switzerland and claim the second qualifying spot by finishing less than a second down on Slovakia.

The Vetesnik twins of the Czech Republic are former Under 23 Champions and now 23 years old they stick to senior competition. They led the second repechage in the style of Slovakia to finish first over Poland’s second crew who waged a close battle with the United States to take the second qualifying spot. Fastest qualifiers, Poland1 appeared in repechage three. Tomasz Kucharski and Robert Sycz are two-time Olympic Champions but don’t always perform so well in the in between years. Today they raced for a second time to win repechage two over Cuba who had to sprint past New Zealand to finish in the second qualifying spot.

The accomplished Fabrice Moreau and Frederic Dufour of France had a tight race in repechage four. They started out in the lead but found themselves battling with France3 through the middle of the race. Moreau and Dufour fought back to take first with Belgium just pipping France3 at the finish to qualify for the semifinal.

Lightweight Men’s Four (LM4-) – Repechage

Two repechages opened with a whole sweep of Dutch crews. Netherlands1 and Netherland3 took on each other at the head of the field. Netherlands1 prevailed as Poland two came through to be the third qualifying spot finishing just a bow ball behind Netherlands3 who also qualify. This puts a commendable three Dutch crews through to the semifinal. From the second repechage the Czech Republic led for the entire race with Ukraine overtaking France2 early on in the race to take second. France2 adds a second French boat to the semifinal by finishing third.

Men’s Quadruple Sculls (M4x) – Repechage

Australia were looking very solid in the only repechage for this event. At 1250m, Egypt, Switzerland and Belarus were far behind. But with 500m left to go, Pavel Shurmei of Belarus called out to his crewmates to challenge their opponents and finish in the top three qualifying spots. The call was heeded. Belarus overtook Switzerland and qualified from third, with Australia and Switzerland qualifying from first and second.