Aussie Crews Progress in Rowing Heats
Rowing: Heats – Day 1
Athlete: Rhys Grant – Men’s Single Scull: (2nd in heat – 7:28.83mins) | David Watts – Men’s Double Scull: (3rd in heat – 6:36.39mins)
Venue: Lagoa Stadium
Western Australian rowers Rhys Grant and David Watts have progressed from heats, through to the next round of their respective events on the opening day of competition at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Conditions on the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas course were extremely choppy, but Olympic debutant Rhys Grant handled them well in the men’s single scull, to post a time of 7:28.83mins to safely navigate his way through to the quarter final stage and avoid Sunday’s repechage round.
Grant finished behind Czech rower Ondrej Synek (7:21.90) and ahead of Paraguayan Arturo Rivarolo Trappe (7:29.23).
The qualified civil engineer headed out strongly in heat five and sat second at the 500m mark. Rivarolo Trappe edged ahead of Grant over the middle section of the race, but the reigning Australian men’s single scull champion was able to power home over the closing 500m to earn second place and ensure his name would be included on the quarter final start list.
Quarter finals for the men’s single scull will be contested on Tuesday evening Perth time, between 7:30pm – 8:00pm.
Western Australian David Watts contested the heats of the men’s double scull later on Saturday evening, rowing with South Australian Chris Morgan to finish third, earning progression to Tuesday’s semi finals.
Their heat was comfortably won by reigning Olympic and World champion combination, Martin and Valent Sinkovic, with the Croatian brothers clocking 6:30.09mins to ease through ahead of France (6:33.03) and Watts and Morgan (6:36.39).
Alexandra Hagan is the third member of WA’s rowing trio in Rio, with the women’s eight beginning their campaign on Monday evening.