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Ellina Mhlanga in PARIS, France
ZIMBABWE’S rower at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Stephen Cox, will be chasing a top spot finish in the Men’ Single Sculls E Final today at the Vaires-Sur-Marne Nautical Stadium to get a better overall ranking.
The race is expected at 09:54pm.
Cox qualified for the E Final when coming second on Monday in the Semi-final E/F 2 in 7 minutes 36.59 seconds over the 2000m distance.
This morning Cox faces Dara Alizadeh from Bermuda, who won Semi-final E/F 2 on Monday as well as Thailand’s Premanut Wattananusith, who came third in the same semi-final heat.
The other rowers making up today’s E Final are Kazakhstan’s Vladislav Yakovlev, Mohamed Taieb of Tunisia and Memo Memo from Indonesia.
Cox has made it clear he wants to win today’s Final E .
“Hopefully, I can get the win in the E Final. I am hoping to win the final, at least, we will see on the day.
“I think the E Final is very competitive. Some of the guys in the E Final this year were in the C Final last Olympics in Tokyo.
“So, the competition is very high this year and hopefully I can beat these guys,” said Cox.
After a three-day break from racing, having been in competition for three consecutive days – from last Saturday up to Monday, he will be hoping for a better time as well.
Andrew Lorimer, who is the rowing manager here, said:
“It’s a great thing to be here, to be with the world’s best. We are really pleased with the performance of Steve. We were hoping that he would get into the C/D Final.
“The times that he has performed here would have seen him in the C/D Final in the Tokyo Olympics. But rowing has got bigger and better since then.
“The standards have gone up. The standards are incredibly high. But that’s what we want to see. We want to be here rowing with the world’s best, seeing what we have to try and to become more and more competitive,” said Lorimer.
Online Reporter