The men’s quad scull headlined Australia’s results on the fourth day of the 2009 FISA World Rowing Championships in Poznan, Poland.
Under cloudy skies and with a light tail wind they progressed to the semi-final, while the men’s eight and men’s lightweight four could not advance.
The men’s quad scull surged into the semi-finals with a solid row in their repechage to get their regatta back on course.
After just missing out on direct qualification for the semi-final in their heat on Monday, Dan Noonan (NSW), David Crawshay (VIC), Jared Bidwell (QLD) and Nick Hudson (NSW) finished a boat length clear in the repechage.
Their time of 5:46.93 was too quick for the rest of the field to handle, as they finished a boat length clear of the USA with Estonia in third place.
Australian men’s team captain and 3 seat in the quad scull, David Crawshay, said the crew have been happy with both rows so far.
“I don’t think we were off the board in the heat, it was just an extremely tough race and still executed it pretty well,” Crawshay said. “We only had a couple of minor things to work on and used this race very much as a rehearsal for the semi-final.
“We needed to get our intensity right from the 400m mark through to just after the 1000 and we got out to a good lead.
“We were intent on staying in the lead so we could get off the water and say we executed what we wanted to do.”
The men’s eight finished fourth in the repechage to fall short of qualifying for the A Final.
After only missing out on a direct place by 5 hundredths of a second in their heat, they were not able to match the pace of Poland in the repechage and finished in a time of 5:35.71, six seconds off the pace. Poland and Italy advanced to the final.
The men’s lightweight four of Angus Tyers (VIC), Ross Brown (WA), Tom Bertrand (VIC) and Darryn Purcell (QLD) narrowly missed out on a place in the semi-finals after a third place finish in their repechage.
Through 1000m the Australian crew sat just behind Switzerland in second place, with Canada in third, with the Canadians moving through Australia just short of the 1500m mark. Switzerland won the repechage in 6:02.59, with Canada 13 hundredths of a second further back and Australia crossing the line in 6:04.93.
The will now row in the lower ranked semi-finals tomorrow afternoon.
Semi-final action commences tomorrow with the Australian women’s pair, women’s double scull and men’s four all chasing berths in the final.
