After a hot day of racing, a storm rolled through Racice last night, with winds at a blistering 30 m/s (67 miles per hour). Luckily, racing had been advanced two hours, so there were not any problems with rowers. The boats are a different story.
According to World Rowing:
The terrible news is that a rack of men’s coxed four boats was picked up by the wind, embroiled like a tumble weed until it was stopped by a nearby truck. The coxed fours were from Great Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Italy, New Zealand, France, and USA. A Croatian boat was also involved, but it might be able to be repaired, according to Rainer Empacher of the German Empacher boatbuilders. Italian boatbuilder, Filippi has already organised special transport to be made tomorrow for two coxed fours from Italy. The German team has kindly offered their spare coxed four for use. The Czech Rowing Federation and the German Rowing Federation will be looking for other coxed fours for the remaining teams.The wonderful thing about rowing is that boat builders do come to regattas and do care about the teams that use their boats. Also, teams will offer boats and oars to teams whose equipment has been damaged (or who don't want to ship the shells and blades overseas).
On top of this, the fours rack rolled over the Polish women’s eight and the boat was deemed not repairable at the regatta. The Polish will bring another eight from Poland on Friday. The German women’s eight was also damaged but can be repaired in time for their next race. A few other boats were damaged and more will be known about the damage on Friday.
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One of the quirks of the World Rowing system is that everyone gets to race in a final to receive a ranking. Therefore there are six "final" races for the lightweight men's single sculls, and four for four other events.
Today the women's four and women's single sculls both finished second in their repechage races. The four will compete in the finals Sunday, while Helen Tompkins in the single will duke it out in the A-level semifinals tomorrow.
The lightweight women’s double sculls, lightweight men’s four, men’s four and lightweight men’s quadruple sculls did not race today, having advanced yesterday straight to Saturday's semifinals. The women's pair, men's four with coxswain, lightweight women's quadruple sculls and women's eight advanced directly to Sunday's final.
The above ten crews (W1x, W2-, LW2x, W4-, LM4-, M4-, M4+, LW4x and LM4x, W8+) are all in medal position.
In other USA news:
The M1x had a tight finish as Argentina's Brian Rosso beat Belgium's Bram Dubois to the finish line by .7 seconds, posting a 7:04.07. Over six seconds behind heading into the final 500 meters, USA's Stephen Lambers made a huge sprint, coming to within one second of Dubois and posting a 7:05.71, just short of making the A/B-level seminfinals.
The M2- missed qualifying for the A-level final in its repechage, losing by 20 seconds to second-place France. It was an incredible battle for first, though, as Germany beat France by .08 seconds, with a time of 6:39.87.
The LW1x is heading to the C-level final.
The LM1x is heading to the C/D-level semifinal.
The M2- is heading to the C-level finals after losing to Georgia by a second and a half.
The W2x is heading to the B-level finals after finishing sixth in their repechage.
The LM2x is heading to the C/D-level semifinals.
The M2x is heading to the C-level finals.
The W4x is heading to the B-level finals.
The M4x is heading to the C/D-level semifinals.
The M8+ is heading to the B-level finals.
Rowing resumes tomorrow, bright and early.
Day 2 results here [.pdf].
Previous results, entries, start lists here.
World Rowing coverage here.
USRowing coverage here.
U.S. boats underweight? here.
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