BEIJING: British rowers have built on their fine early form with two more crews reaching the finals in Beijing.
Thanks to some excellent earlier results, Britain had just two crews in repechages, but both qualified for the next stage of the competition. Coach Rob Morgan is in charge of both the women's lightweight double scull and the women's pair, but was having a pretty good day. He came round to the mix zone to congratulate Olivia Whitlam and Louisa Reeve as the coxless pair, only together for 3 months, rowed brilliantly to clinch a place in the Olympic final.
They were second to former world champions New Zealand, who had faltered at the start but steadied and rowed through the Britons. But this spurred Whitlam and Reeve on, and they tagged onto the New Zealand stern and carved through Australia, who now row in the B-final along with France.
The result was a well-deserved bonus for a pair which only qualified for the Olympics in June.
Earlier Hester Goodsell and Helen Casey had won their repechage, putting them back into the semi-finals on Thursday. They led all the way and were looking very confident before Greece surged near the end and almost caught them. Not their best final minute of a race, but good enough to move on and learn from.—Agency