Olympic Rowing Gets Underway Friday Morning in Tokyo
The U.S. women's single sculls, women's double sculls and women's quadruple sculls will take to the water ahead of tomorrow night's Opening Ceremonies, as racing at the Sea Forest Waterway gets underway Friday morning at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
In the women's single sculls, two-time
In the women's double sculls, three-time Olympian Gevvie Stone (Newton, Mass/Princeton University) and Kristi Wagner (Weston, Mass./Yale University) will race in the first of three heats against crews from China, New Zealand, France and the Czech Republic. Stone won the silver medal in the women's single sculls at the 2016 Olympic Games, while Wagner is racing on her first Olympic and senior national team. New Zealand comes into the Olympics as the defending world champions, having won gold in 2019. Brooke Donoghue returns from that lineup with a new partner, Hannah Osborne. The top three finishers from the heats move on directly to the semifinals.
"Hawaii was a great start to the final prep, and we've continued to feel more and more comfortable each row at Sea Forest," Stone said. "As a double, we hadn't ever trained on salt water before. That was an adjustment the first day, and now we're rigged for it. The water chop and a bridge during the 2k channel Boston Basin energy, which we love. We have a tough heat tomorrow—as to be expected as this is the Olympics."
The women's quadruple sculls crew of Ellen Tomek (Flushing, Mich./University of Michigan), Meghan O'Leary (Baton Rouge, La./University of Virginia), Alie Rusher (West Bend, Wis./Stanford University), and Cicely Madden (Weston, Mass./Brown University) will race in the first of two heats against Great Britain, Germany, New Zealand and The Netherlands, with the top two finishers advancing directly to the final. The Netherlands, who won bronze in the event at the 2019 World Rowing Championships, won gold with their Olympic lineup earlier this year at the 2021 European Championships, ahead of Great Britain and Germany. The U.S. boat includes two Olympic veterans in Tomek and O'Leary and two Olympic rookies.
"We are honing in on our race mentality and flow for the boat," Rusher said. "As this is my first time representing USA at the senior level, I'm pretty nervous, but also excited because nerves give me laser focus in crunch time."
"Preparations have been going well," Tomek said. "We have been having lots of fun as a crew right from day one. I am excited to compare our speed to the other quads. We know everyone is going to be fast and every race is important, but we also know that we aren’t going to have to do anything special to be in the mix. We just have to row our race and execute to the best of our abilities, and we should be in the mix with everyone. I personally have been focusing on my main jobs in the boat -- setting a long, consistent, aggressive rhythm and steering a straight course."
In addition to the three women's open sculling events, racing in the men's single sculls, men's double sculls and men's quadruple sculls also gets underway on Friday. Racing starts at 8:30 a.m. local time (7:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday). NBC's broadcast schedule and links to NBC's live streaming are available on USRowing's Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 coverage page.
In total, the U.S. will have nine crews competing in Tokyo. The women's pair, lightweight women's double sculls, women's four and men's four will race in heats on Saturday, with the women's eight and men's eight opening their racing on Sunday.
Click here for the full schedule on the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 website, and click here for USRowing's Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 coverage page for athlete bios, articles, photos and more.
Click here for flash quotes from today's practice session.
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