The U.S. men's four and women's double sculls will get their opportunity to race for gold on Wednesday morning as the first Olympic rowing medals are up for grabs at Sea Forest Waterway at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
The men's four crew of Clark Dean (Sarasota, Fla./Harvard University), Michael Grady (Pittsburgh, Pa./Cornell University), Anders Weiss (Barrington, R.I./Brown University) and Andrew Reed (Wayland, Mass./Harvard University) finished second to Australia in their heat to advance directly to the final. The crew will take on Australia, Great Britain, Italy, Romania and The Netherlands at 10:10 a.m. local time (9:10 p.m. EDT, Tuesday) for a shot at a medal. Great Britain won the other heat, with Italy taking second. Romania and The Netherlands advanced out of the repechage.
"Simple is best for us," said Weiss, a two-time Olympian, about keeping their focus as a younger crew. "We've done our research beforehand. We've taken the steps needed to keep it simple."
In the women's double sculls, three-time Olympian Gevvie Stone (Newton, Mass/Princeton University) and Kristi Wagner (Weston, Mass./Yale University) will take on The Netherlands, Romania, New Zealand, Canada and Lithuania in their race for the medals at 9:18 a.m. local time (8:18 p.m., Tuesday). Stone and Wagner finished third in their semifinal to reach the final. The Netherlands and Romania won the two semifinals, with New Zealand – the defending world champions – and Canada taking second in their respective races.
"I did not want to let Gevvie down," Wagner said after the semifinal. "I was nervous, but I knew we could do it. I'm not the only first-time Olympian here. That eight is pretty young. We had a world cup this year. They didn't have (one), and they had no problem qualifying directly for the final and putting themselves in a great spot, so that gave me a little bit of confidence. Just because you haven't done it before doesn't mean you can't do it. I think you just have to maybe fake it 'til you make it a little bit. You can't let the nerves get the better of you. We're going to give it our all on Wednesday because you don't make an Olympic final just to be there."
Three U.S. crews will be racing for their spots in the finals on Wednesday, two through semifinals and one through the repechages.
The lightweight women's double sculls duo of Michelle Sechser (Folsom, Calif./University of Tulsa) and Molly Reckford (Short Hills, N.J./Dartmouth College) dominated their repechage to earn a spot in the semifinals. The duo will take on Romania, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia in the second of two semifinals, with the top three finishers advancing to the medal race on Thursday. Romania enters the second semi as the top seed, having won its heat. Canada and Italy placed second in their respective heats to advance to the semifinals. The race is scheduled for 11:50 a.m. local time (10:50 p.m. EDT, Tuesday).
"Getting a second run down the track for Molly and I is still a really good thing," Sechser said after the repechage. "This still is a new crew. We haven't put together an international campaign yet, so staying really positive about what we can learn each trip down the course is really going to help us."
The women's pair of four-time Olympian Megan Kalmoe (St. Croix Falls, Wis./University of Washington) and two-time Olympian Tracy Eisser (Fair Lawn, N.J./Cornell University) finished second in their repechage to advance to the semifinals. The duo will take on Romania, New Zealand, Italy, Russia and Spain in the second of two semifinals at 12:30 p.m. local time (11:30 a.m. EDT, Tuesday). New Zealand, the defending world champions, won their heat, while Romania and Russia placed second in their opening races. The top three finishers will move on to Thursday's final.
The men's eight of coxswain Julian Venonsky (Malvern, Pa./University of California, Berkeley), Liam Corrigan (Old Lyme, Conn./Harvard University), Conor Harrity (Weston, Mass./Harvard University), Nick Mead (Strafford, Pa./Princeton University), Alexander Richards (Watertown, Mass./Harvard University), two-time Olympian Austin Hack (Old Lyme, Conn./Stanford University), Alex Miklasevich (Pittsburgh, Pa./Brown University), Justin Best (Kennett Square, Pa./Drexel University), and Ben Davison (Inverness, Fla./University of Washington) finished second to Germany in their heat, just missing a spot in the final. The crew will take on Romania, New Zealand, Great Britain and Australia in the repechage, with the top four moving on to Friday's final.
"The last time some of us raced was Linz in 2019, so we were all just really excited to get out there against some very talented crews and see what we were capable of," Harrity said after the heat. "We're looking forward to doing it again during the rep."
The U.S. also will have two crews racing in placement finals on Wednesday.
The women's four of two-time Olympian Grace Luczak (Ann Arbor, Mich./Stanford University), Kendall Chase (Evergreen, Colo./University of California, Berkeley), Claire Collins (McLean, Va./Princeton University) and Madeleine Wanamaker (Neenah, Wis./University of Wisconsin) will be racing in tomorrow's B final at 8:30 a.m. local time (7:30 p.m. EDT, Tuesday) for overall places 7-10. The quartet will take on crews from Romania, Canada and Denmark.
The women's quadruple sculls crew of three-time Olympian Ellen Tomek (Flushing, Mich./University of Michigan), two-time Olympian Meghan O'Leary (Baton Rouge, La./University of Virginia), Alie Rusher (West Bend, Wis./Stanford University), and Cicely Madden (Weston, Mass./Brown University) also will race in the B final for places 7-10. They will take on New Zealand, Great Britain, and France at 9:00 a.m. local time (8:00 p.m. EDT, Tuesday).
Rowing continues on Thursday with finals in the men's and women's pair and men's and women's lightweight double sculls. Semifinals in the men's and women's single sculls also will take place on Thursday. Click here for the most up-to-date schedule on the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 website.
NBC's broadcast schedule and links to NBC's live streaming are available on USRowing's Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 coverage page, as are athlete bios, daily recaps/previews, photos and more.
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