Time Trials prevail in turbulent weather

Australian crews progress at World Rowing Cup 3 despite trying conditions in Rotterdam

 Adverse weather hit Rotterdam on the opening day of World Rowing Cup 3. The heavy rain, strong winds and thunderstorms saw event organisers change the regatta format, with all heat races becoming time trials on the Friday afternoon in the Netherlands.

With the changes made by the FISA Executive Committee, events with 13 or more entries had their repechages and quarter finals cancelled, while those with 12 or fewer entries kept their progression system with repechages scheduled for Saturday.

In line with this, based on its time trial results, Australia booked four A-Finals for Sunday and 10 semi-final berths and three repechages for Saturday.

Performance Director, Bernard Savage said, “It was an unusual day of racing with changes made due to the poor weather conditions. All the crews handled themselves well in what was a challenging situation with the changes in race schedule and format.

“Hopefully the weather improves tomorrow (Saturday) so that there are no further disruptions to the program and we can have some hard and fair racing conditions.”

The crews that progressed to A/B semi-finals, to be raced on Saturday, based on their time-trial results were:

• Both Women’s Pairs (J Morrison and A McIntyre; L Tinapple and G Gotch)
• Both Men’s Pairs (A Hill and S Turrin; S Hardy and J Hicks)
• Men’s Double Scull (H Playfair & C Watts)
• Lightweight Women’s Single Scull (G Nesbitt)
• Lightweight Men’s Single Scull (S Murphy)
• Men’s Single Scull (D Bartholot)
• Lightweight Women’s Double Scull (A Arch and S Pound)
• Lightweight Men’s Double Scull (H Parry and L Chambers)

The crews that will contest repechages on Saturday, based on their time-trial results were:

• Women’s Quadruple Scull (R Meredith, K Bateman, F Ewing and C Grzeskowiak)
• Men’s Quadruple Scull (C Antill, A Purnell, C Girdlestone and D Watts)
• Men’s Eight (J Medway, R Black, L Donald, S Keenan, J Booth, L Letcher, A Moore, A Widdicombe and K Brodie)

The crews that progressed to Sunday’s A-Finals based on their time-trial results were:

• Women’s Four (O Aldersey, K Werry, S Hawe and L Stephan)
• Men’s Four (T Masters, N Purnell, J Hargreaves and J O’Brien)
• Women’s Double Scull (A Bateman and G Horton)
• Women’s Eight (L Saunders, J Edmunds, B Cox, G Rowe, R Popa, A McIntyre, J Morrison, M Goodman and J Rook)
  

Race times for Saturday can be found here on the World Rowing website.

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