adminRIO DE JANEIRO. — High winds meant that yesterday’s Olympic rowing events — where Zimbabwe’s Micheen Thonycroft has qualified for the quarter-finals — were postponed at the Lagoa Stadium in Rio. Thornycroft qualified in the women’s singles sculls after an impressive second place finish in her qualifying heat at the Rio Olympic Games regatta. She is competing in her second Olympic Games and came home in eight minutes 18.99 seconds in brutal conditions to finish second in Heat 1 of the qualifiers.
She beat Australian world champion Kim Brennan who finished third in 8:22:82. “What crazy conditions. Happy to have stayed upright and crossed the finish line to make the quarter-finals. Now for recovery for the next race on Tuesday! Thanks so much for all the support, it has been incredible,” Thornycroft said.
Yesterday’s scheduled races will now take place today.
The weather caused problems on Saturday for Serbs Milos Vasic and Nenad Bedik, who capsized during their men’s semi-final. Play was also delayed on the outside tennis courts because of the wind, while the start of the canoe slalom event was delayed by one hour.
“Whether it was fans, rowers or Great Britain rowing performance director Sir David Tanner, everyone agreed that postponing events at Lagoa on Sunday was the right decision,” the BBC’s Alistair Magowan said.
“At first, the wind speed wasn’t too dissimilar to Saturday, which saw a bumpy day’s competition result in a crew from Serbia capsizing, but soon after the regatta was called off the wind really increased to a level where it wasn’t good for running around the lagoon let alone rowing on it.“ — Sports Reporter/BBC Sport.
Online Reporter