Tokyo Olympics 2021: Rowing faces another delay as wild weather plays havoc
All eyes are on the weather in Tokyo as a tropical storm moves dangerously close. These are the sports which will be impacted the most.
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Not quite up poo creek, but almost.
Racing at Sea Forest Waterway has been cancelled for Monday and Tuesday with Olympic organisers worried about wild weather forecasts.
Local weather forecasters have downgraded a typhoon to a tropical storm by the time it makes landfall along the eastern coast of Japan.
A meeting held late Sunday with World Rowing and Olympic officials confirmed the shuffled program which will now see all nine Australian boats out on the water on Wednesday.
Big Wednesday will now boast four finals, two semi-finals, two repechages and a B final for Australian boats.
Tropical Storm Nepartak could also impact the likes of canoeing and triathlon.
Head women’s coach John Keogh said: “The forecast looks nice for tomorrow (morning) so we will probably just train tomorrow (Monday) ... before the wind picks up.”
“We won’t be surprised if they bring it forward, but at this point in time they have said there will be no racing tomorrow.”
“If we lose several days we are up s**t creek aren’t we? It’s not just rowing, its kayaking, it’s lots of events. The forecast has it moving north, so it looks promising.”
Also looking promising is Australia’s potential medal haul.
Already five of Australia’s nine boats have qualified for finals, including the women’s quad scull who will now row for a medal.
Ria Thompson, Rowena Meredith, Harriet Hudson and Caitlin Cronin won their repechage in 6min36.67secs, helped out by Great Britain catching some early water.
Cronin said: “Honestly pretty unreal ... lot of the crews haven’t raced internationally for two years so it’s pretty good to come out and show the world what we have been doing.”
“Last year, for three or four months, we were in quite a hard lockdown weren’t able to get out on the water.
“But then we got back together at the National Training Centre and gone from strength to strength.”
The women’s double scull Amanda Bateman and Tara Rigney weren’t so successful missing out on A final and progressing through to B.
With the tropical storm originally feared to be typhoon Takaya Masa, spokesperson of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee said: “Changing the schedule is not a rare event, and we understand the burden it’ll have on athletes.”
“We’re looking closely at the path ... to make decisions as preventive measures. Should it make land, there could be damages, and if that’s going to be the case, we will take responsible measures.”
Aussies in hot form but typhoon looms
Attention ... Oi ... Oi ... Oi.
The Aussie starter at Sea Forest Waterway proved a lucky omen as Australia’s first two crews - the women’s and men’s pair - won their Saturday heats to book themselves into an Olympic semi final.
All up four of the six Aussie crews on the water on Saturday won their heats and are through to finals, while the women’s and men’s eight face repechage.
With bad weather looming courtesy of a typhoon forecast off Japan, racing has been crammed into Sunday’s program with Monday’s racing called off.
And with no spectators allowed, the stands are populated with competitors, team officials and media - it makes for a crowd more like a national schools championships except this crowd includes the like of rowing royalty Sir Steve Redgrave.
You got to love the Brits - instead of feeling disappointed that the Ali of rowing is now coaching Chinese rowers, they’re just happy that he caught up with his wife for the first time in 18 months and had a cup of tea.
Dr Elizabeth Redgrave is the medical officer for the English team and COVID forced their separation and subsequent socially distanced tea break.
Sea Forest Waterway is in an industrial area and planes pass overhead as Australian women’s pair Jessica Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre won their heat in 7min21.75 seconds.
It’s the slowest heat in the women’s pair discipline but it’s a smart row as this pair need to back up for the women’s four later in the afternoon.
It’s a feat not lost on men’s pair rower Sam Hardy who won his heat with Joshua Hicks to also progress through to the semi finals.
“It’s really tough, I wouldn’t want to do it. To double up is very hard ... I have never done it, racing in a regatta is hard in one boat so twice as much work is very hard,” he said.
The Australian women’s four are the current world champions but this is the first time the crew has rowed in this discipline at the Olympics after the event was dropped almost 30 years ago.
The International Olympic Committee is moving towards gender equity so the lightweight men’s four was cut to make room for women’s coxless four.
This change will make for an equal number of women and men competing in rowing at the Olympics — 263 athletes of each gender.
And in a historic return to the Olympic program, Australia held off a fast finishing Irish crew to win their heat in 6min28.76seconds.
Rosie Popa, who continues her family’s Olympic legacy with parents Sue Chapman-Popa and Ion Popa medallists for Australia at Los Angeles 1984, said: “It was a great start for us ... we’ve been waiting such a long time to race.”
“I spoke to them (parents) and they have just told me to enjoy it.”
When asked about Morrison and McIntyre backing up from the pair, Popa said:“They are amazing athletes.”
“In training we have been testing the two hours between the pair and four and every single time they have done an amazing job.
“And that two hours is exactly what ended up happening.”
The next race continued Australia’s rich history in the men’s four in which the Awesome Foursome made a household name in 1992.
The crew of Alex Purnell, Spencer Turrin, Jack Hargreaves and Alex Hill have only lost one race in the current Olympic cycle and was never challenged.
Wild weather forecast in the next 48 hours saw the eights brought forward to today from Sunday and both Australian eights drew tough heats.
The men were never in touch with world champions Germany and the women’s eight couldn’t keep pace with the US, who are searching for their fourth consecutive Olympic gold in Tokyo.
DAY 1: Aussies row to beat of their own drum in Tokyo heatwave
If you hear a drum echoing across the water at Sea Forest Waterway, there’s an Aussie on the course.
It’s a beat that will be heard often.
There’s a presence about this Australian rowing team which kicked off it’s Tokyo campaign with three crews on the water and two making it straight through to finals.
With AOC President and former rower John Coates paying a visit and temperatures hitting 32 degrees, most athletes draped themselves in ice vests, cold towels.
The heat also saw fellow Aussie rowers, the loudest of supporters, reaching for their team-issued ice slushies.
The man-made salt water course set underneath Tokyo Gate Bridge is described as “fair” - which means all lanes react the same with wind conditions.
But had there been a crowd in the 2000 capacity open air stadium, they would have described it as baking.
Yes there’s a heatwave, and there’s the virus and some weather forecasts have predicted heavy rain could develop in the middle of the week.
And then there are the oysters.
Japan spent $1.3 million to get rid of the oyster problem at this venue after magaki oysters had attached themselves to the floats and were weighing them down.
By the time the floats were either dragged out of the water to be cleaned and de-mollusked, or cleaned on the spot by divers, more than 14 tons of oysters had been collected and removed.
But with course cleaned, Aussies Amanda Bateman and Tara Rigney, in their Olympic debut, finished third in their heat to qualify for Monday’s semi finals.
The men’s quad sculls of Jack Cleary, Caleb Antill, Cameron Girdlestone and Luke Letcher worked hard to finished 1.74 seconds behind world champions Netherlands.
With a stroke rate hitting 42 seconds per minute, the men’s quad were tipped to be the smokey of the nine Aussie crew boats at the Olympic regatta.
But with a night ahead of video analysis and review, coach Mark Prater was pragmatic about their chances.
“We know we have a few things to work on … they weren’t relaxed, we never found our rhythm … it’s difficult to gauge where we are at (not having raced for 18 months),” he said.
“The boys will jump in the ice baths back in the village and then review … today was getting some of those nerves out of the way, and getting into the final … excellent.”
Women’s quad Ria Thompson, Rowena Meredith, Harriet Hudson and Caitlin Cronin finished fourth but will have another chance through repechage.
None of our rowers will march at tonight’s Opening Ceremony and we’re pretty sure that unlike Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk they won’t be requested to by the best politician in Australia.
With one of the biggest rowing teams of any country with 38 athletes boasting more than 135 World Cup rowing medals, there is a lot of expectation in this side and no more than the men’s and women’s four who start their campaigns tomorrow.
Originally published as Tokyo Olympics 2021: Rowing faces another delay as wild weather plays havoc
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