Article by Rupert Guinness, courtesy of the Australian Olympic Committee.
The women’s Pairs crew of Annabelle McIntyre and Jess Morrison, one of Australia’s strongest 2024 Olympics rowing medal hopes, will take their next step towards an opportunity to win gold when they line up to race their semi-final.
Silver medallists at the 2023 and 2022 World Championships, the crew has drawn lane four in their qualifier for the A Final at the Stade Nautique de Vaires-sur-Marne, east of Paris.
Also drawn in their semi-final is Spain, China, Lithuania, Ireland and the United States.
The gold medal favourites and reigning world champions, the Netherlands, will race in the first semi-final against Great Britain, Czechia, Romania, Greece and Denmark.
Annabelle and Jess, who both raced in Australia’s gold medal winning Women’s Four at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, are touted as the biggest threat to the fancied Dutch champions.
However, the Australians are not taking any opposition lightly. At the Tokyo Games, when they doubled up after the fours to race in the pair semi-finals, they were bundled out.
“Over the last couple of years all boat classes have gotten faster and in particular the women’s pair,” Annabelle said after winning their heat to make the semi-final.
“I can think off the top of my head four or five different boats that are going to be really hard to beat this year.
“The position [in the semi-final] definitely does matter to us. We’ve been kicked out of a final through a semi-final [in the Tokyo Games].
“For us, it’s really important to get out there, race as fast as possible and hopefully get a winning position.”
Also racing on Wednesday is the women’s Quad Sculls crew of Caitlin Cronin, Laura Gourley, Rowena Meredith, Ria Thompson in the B Final where a win will be in their sights.
They placed third in their repechage when needing a top two finish to semi-final.
The repechage still saw them produce their best performance on water. It augurs well for their hope of winning the B Final; even better, in a time that is up with those in the A Final.
Meanwhile, Day Four of the Olympic regatta was one of mixed emotions for the Rowsellas who came to the Olympics with nine boats having qualified from 14 classes.
The day began tremendously with Tara Rigney winning her quarter-final of the Women’s Single Sculls in another commanding performance to qualify for the semi-final on Thursday.
The other quarter finals were won by Dutch world champion Karolien Florijn, New Zealand’s Olympic champion Emma Twigg – both major favourites – and Lithuania’s Viktorija Senkute.
Rigney’s success aside, day four ended in disappointment for the Rowsellas team.
In the women’s Double Sculls semi-final, Amanda Bateman and Harriet Hudson finished just 0.022 seconds outside of the top three places they needed to qualify for the A Final.
In the women’s Four repechage, the crew of Olympia Aldersey, Jean Mitchell, Lily Alton and Molly Goodman finished sixth in their repechage where the first three made the A Final.
The women’s double sculls and four will now both race in their B Finals on Thursday.
Day Five of competition begins with Annabelle and Jess in the Pairs at 7:04pm AEST, followed by the Women’s Quad Sculls B Final with Caitlin, Laura, Rowena and Ria at 8:14pm AEST.
