Australia lines up for eight finals at World Championships
Friday 28 August 2009
Australia will contest eight A Finals after two more crews qualified from their respective semi-finals on Friday at the 2009 FISA Rowing World Championships in Poznan, Poland.
In hot and humid conditions at the Malta Regatta Course the women’s lightweight double scull and men’s quad scull both successfully negotiated their semi-finals to join the six other crews who are contesting medal races.
Six of these finals will be held on Saturday, while the women’s lightweight double scull and men’s quad scull will conclude proceedings with their final on Sunday.
The women’s lightweight double scull of Alice McNamara (VIC) and Bronwen Watson (NSW) qualified for the final with a third place finish in their semi-final.
Greece set an electric pace off the blocks and moved to almost two lengths clear of the field at the 1000m mark, with Australia in a battle for second and third with Cuba and Canada.
Watson and McNamara were able to go with Canada over the final 500m, leaving Cuba behind, and finished a canvas off Canada in a time of 7:32.13, two lengths behind winners’ Greece.
“We did what we had to do to reach the final so we are pretty happy,” McNamara said. “We have a couple of things to work on but it should be a tight race in the final on Sunday.”
The men’s quad scull crew of Dan Noonan (NSW), David Crawshay (VIC), Jared Bidwell (QLD) and Nick Hudson (NSW) produced an excellent final 200m sprint to finish second behind Olympic champions Poland in their semi-final.
Poland led for the entire race, with Australia in third place at the 1000m mark marginally behind the Ukraine crew. With 500m remaining, Croatia joined the hunt for one of the three qualifying places.
Poland held on to win in 5:56.04, while Australia edged Croatia on the line by five hundredths of a second in a time of 5:57.69, with all three crews progressing to the final.
“Poland and Ukraine went out pretty hard,” Crawshay said. “We expected it from Poland but not so much from Ukraine.
“We put in a pretty hard second 500 to set ourselves up for a good second half of the race. When there was 200 metres to go and we were level with Ukraine we all knew we had worked too hard to let it slip so gave it everything.”
In the earlier C Final of the lightweight men’s four, Angus Tyers (VIC), Ross Brown (WA), Tom Bertrand (VIC) and Darryn Purcell (QLD) finished second behind Great Britain to round out their regatta.
Great Britain led for the majority of the race, while Australia moved from third at the halfway mark into second and crossed the line in a time of 6:43.91.
