28 July 2024

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch posts a media release from World Rowing summarising the second day of the 2024 Olympic Regatta.

For immediate release: Paris, Sunday, 28 July.

In contrast to yesterday’s wet conditions, the Olympic course provided bright sunshine and low winds for the second day of the 2024 Olympic Regatta. The sessions started with repechages (second chance races) for the single and double sculls before the heats in the coxless pairs, lightweight doubles and coxless fours for men and women took to the water. 

The day started with some historic results in the repechages of the single sculls. In the women’s event, Adriana Sanguineti of Peru finished second, securing qualification for the quarterfinal (and therefore a top 24 finish) – the highest previous ranking for Peru was 31st. Meanwhile, Paraguay’s Javier Insfran has also lined himself up to make history – he’s also into the quarterfinals and Paraguay has never finished better than 24th at an Olympic Regatta.

After the history, came heartbreak as the first two boats were eliminated from the competition. In the women’s and men’s double sculls, four boats were racing for three places. This year’s silver European silver medallists from Lithuania missed out in the women’s boat whereas in the men’s double sculls, Italy slipped back from third place into the danger zone of fourth in the second half of the race and couldn’t ever quite recover. 

There were tough progressions in the heats of the women’s pair where the silver medallists from last year’s World Rowing Championships (Australia) clocked the fastest time, winning heat 3 in 7:16.58. The reigning World Champions, Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester looked impressive in heat one, while Romania were victorious in the second heat. 

Times were tight across the three men’s pair heats and the photo finish camera was required, keeping the fans in suspense. The reigning World Champions from Switzerland, Roman Roeoesli and Andrin Gulich were eventually announced as having finished fourth, missing out on direct progression to the semifinals. Spain’s Jaime Canalejo Pazos and Javier Garcia Ordonez had won the race and the sprint to the line had enabled them to clock the fastest time across the three heats. Reigning Olympic Champions, the brothers Martin and Valent Sinkovic, won the second heat while the third and final heat saw a strong win for the British pair of Oliver Wynne-Griffith and Tom George.

2024 is the last time that the lightweight double sculls will be included in the Olympic Programme and crews are therefore keen to take the title as the last ever Olympic Champions. On the women’s side, Great Britain are clearly out for redemption after coming so close to a medal in Tokyo. The duo of Emily Craig and Imogen Grant, who are unbeaten since then, looked strong today, crossing the line several lengths ahead of Greece. Heat two was won comfortably by Romania, while the home support wasn’t quite enough to get France to the line ahead of New Zealand in heat three.

Ireland are looking to defend their title of Olympic Champions in the lightweight men’s double sculls, and things are looking good. Although their time wasn’t the fastest, they weren’t pushed, and it will be interesting to see what more they have in the next rounds. The fastest time across the three heats had been set by Switzerland’s Jan Schaeuble and Raphael Ahumada in heat one. Their time was 6:24.88. The Swiss duo finished behind Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan at last year’s World Rowing Championships so it will be exciting to see them go head-to-head again in Paris.

Great Britain are arguably one of the favourites in the women’s four, but they were sat in second place for the first half of heat one after China had a fast start, and New Zealand had also had a brief spell at the front of the field. The Brits eventually gained control and crossed the line a length ahead of New Zealand. The reigning World Champions from the Netherlands looked strong in the second heat and will undoubtedly provide fierce opposition for Great Britain in the final. Romania took the final direct qualification spot. 

The British have come in as one of the favourites in the men’s four too, and have strong history with the boat class, but today’s heats indicated they’re going to have their work cut out in the final. New Zealand got out fast and established an early lead in heat one while Great Britain had to overhaul Romania to take the second qualifying place. In the second heat, it was the United States of America and Australia who booked their places in the finals. Two places are still up for grabs for the five crews in the repechage on Tuesday. 

Day 3 (Monday, 29 July) will commence at 09:30 CET with semifinals E/F in the men’s and women’s single sculls before a series of repechages. The session will conclude with the first appearance of the men’s and women’s eights. The Monday start list can be found here.

Follow all the results live on worldrowing.com, on olympics.com and the live updates on World Rowing’s social media channels:
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/WorldRowing;
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/worldrowingofficial/;
X – https://x.com/WorldRowing;
YouTube – https://twitter.com/WorldRowing;
TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@worldrowing

HTBS adds: 

Row360’s Day 2 report and pictures are here.

For those especially interested in the fortunes of British crews, the British Rowing website also has a Day 2 Report. If you can access it, the BBC’s “on demand” service, iPlayer, has the rowing both live and recorded.