It was a twin-turbo charged semi-final of the women’s rowing pairs this morning with Australia’s Olympia Aldersey and Emma Basher snatching prime position for tomorrow’s final.
It was a twin-turbo charged semi-final of the women’s rowing pairs this morning with Australia’s Olympia Aldersey and Emma Basher snatching prime position for tomorrow’s final.
The South Australian duo blitzed the field to win their semi in a time of three minutes 36.83 seconds.
It was not just Singapore’s overwhelming humidity making people see double at the course today, with two sets of twins lining up in the Australian girls’ semi.
The Tikhanova sisters from Russia and the Misachenka sisters hailing from Belarus may have been carbon copies of each other but it counted for little on the water, where the Aussies showed you didn’t need to be identical to paddle in sync.
“It was what we wanted to achieve,” Basher said of the convincing win. “We came in first and that’s what we wanted so we’re really happy.”
The Aussies edged out Greece and Hungary to take the win, with both sets of twins relegated to the B-final.
Happy with their race and their ultimate result, Basher and Aldersey are not complacent about tomorrow’s final.
“We had a steering issue,” Aldersey explained. “We headed for the buoy and overcompensated. We didn’t think it would be an issue so we’re going to have to bear it in mind for tomorrow’s final.”
In the other women’s semi, Italy were the heroes producing a solid victory in 3:37.29 ahead of Romania and Great Britain. Interestingly, the New Zealand crew who the Aussies had pipped as the ones to beat failed to make the A-final.
“It just shows you don’t know what is going to happen, so it makes it even more exciting,” Basher said. “You can’t judge the race on how big boats go and also the different distance.”
In the men’s semi-finals that followed, Australia’s David Watts and Matthew Cochran also crossed the line in first place, in a time of 3:18.50.
“We came away with the result we wanted but we have a few things to work on,” Watts said.
“It’s always good to come out on top and hopefully we can do that again in the final,” Cochran added.
The Australian crew posted the fourth fastest time overall with Greece again dominating the race. The Greek and Australian crews will line up against Great Britain, Turkey, Slovenia and Serbia in tomorrow’s final, all hoping for a spot on the podium.
Finals will take place on Wednesday 18 August from 11.40am local time.
Alice Wheeler
AOC
