ROWING: Spectators at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games rowing regatta will literally be seeing double.
Two sets of twins in Chile’s Melita and Antonia Abraham and Australia’s Tyler and Miller Ferris will face the starter in Monday’s heats of the junior women’s pairs at the Xuanwu Lake Rowing-Canoeing Venue.
The four girls, all 17-years-old, agree rowing with a sibling born minutes apart has its advantages and disadvantages.
“We match each other in height, weight and reach, which is great for boat balance, rhythm and run, but mostly it’s just plain hard work,” Tyler said.
“We get on well in the boat but as far as conversation coming down the course is concerned, we pretty well just throw any thoughts of a race plan out the window and just go for it.
"The course is only 1000m long, so there’s not much time for talk anyway,” she added.
The girls arrived on Wednesday and have trained every day since, on average completing 8km in their morning sessions which is a combination of drills paddle and speed work.
"The course is good," Miller said. "The water is nice, but it was a bit windy yesterday."
In contrast, the Chileans, who form the female half of a set of rowing quadruplets, admit to having “sister moments” in their boat.
“It can be very difficult rowing together. We say what we think sometimes without worrying about offending the other person,” Melita said.
“We were good sisters growing up and we are best friends. Just sometimes [in the boat] we don’t respect each other.”
The Abraham quadruplets were born in July 1997.
Brothers Alfredo and Ignacio also row at representative level as members of the Chilean men’s quadruple sculls crew (a class not boating in Nanjing), but suggestions of a family mixed quad scull forming any time in the future are quickly dashed by the girls.
“We tried rowing together in the same boat once but we had to turn around after a very short time because we were fighting too much,” Antonia said.
Rowing begins at 10:00 Sunday, August 17 with the junior women's single sculls. The heats of the junior women’s pairs begin on Monday, August 18 at 11:20.
The gold medal races for all boat classes will be run on Wednesday August 20 from 10:00.
YIS with Frances Cordaro
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