Adaptive rowers aim for Paralympic qualification at the Rowing World Cup

Their goal: the final opportunity to qualify for the Beijing Paralympic Games. Two boats in each of the four events had a chance. Today they raced the first round, the heats, over 1000m.

Arms Women’s Single Sculls (AW1x)

A race for lanes of six scullers. Ping Cho of Hong Kong China used a high stroke rate to take an early lead. With just the use of their arms, often stroke rates can be in the 50s strokes per minute. These scullers, however, chose to be a little more sedate. Making her international debut, Israel’s Pascale Bercovitch started to close the gap on Hong Kong China and using a solid 36 stroke rate earned herself a centre lane in the final after overtaking Cho. Emmanuelle Assmann of France came in second.

Arms Men’s Single (AM1x)

Two heats required the athletes, with their bodies strapped to their seat and using arms only, to finish in the top spot for a chance to go directly to the final. Ukraine made the best of heat one. Oleksandr Petrenko took the lead and pulled ahead of Luis Miguel Castro Carmona of Spain. In the knowledge that only first would advance directly, the rest of the field looked like they were happy to give the race to Petrenko. Petrenko finishes a huge 21 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.

Heat two was much closer with Russia’s Alexey Malyshev pushing Antony Bonfim of Brazil and forcing him to keep his rating high. At the finish Bonfim prevailed earning a spot in the final and an eye towards Olympic qualification. Malyshev, who raced last year at the back of the field in the trunk and arms event, will return tomorrow to race in the repechage. Bonfim, 29, goes directly to the final in his first international race.

Trunk and Arms Double Sculls (TA2x)

Using the trunk as well as arms gives these athletes just a bit more leverage and power to send their boat along and in the first of two heats Harald Wimmer and Siglind Koehler of Germany moved their boat along the quickest. With just the first crew going directly to the final, Greece took up chase and kept the heat on Wimmer and Koehler. The Germans, however, retained the leaders’ edge and will go directly to the final – the first German boat to qualify for Saturday’s final.

Just three boats lined up in the second heat with Igor and Mary Kogan of Israel taking an early lead. The Kogans are in their third season racing together and missed out on qualifying for the Paralympics last year by three spots. They are back giving it another shot and move comfortably through to the final with the rest of the field not able to keep up with the pace of the Israelis.

Legs, Trunk and Arms Mixed Coxed Four (LTAMx4+)

With five boats entered a race for lanes was required for Saturday’s final. China and Denmark took off in the lead with Australia and South Africa in hot pursuit. By the half-way mark China had found the lead but only just. China then pulled away to cross the line in first with South Africa taking second. These two crews will take the two centre lanes in the final.