The Aussie Para-rowers started their campaign today at Sea Forest Waterway with encouraging signs in the heats and will enter tomorrow’s repechage with confidence.
While they faced some tricky conditions created by a strong head wind and warm temperatures it was nothing they hadn’t already prepared for having done their research prior to departure.
Erik Horrie placed second in his heat for the PR1 Men’s Single Sculls posting a time of 10:32.92, behind Brazilian Rene Campos Pereira who progressed straight to the A Final on Sunday.
“It was a good row over the course, it was good to be back in the boat. I wasn’t first but second’s OK, tomorrow’s another day and we’ll aim for top 2 and go through to the Final,” said Horrie.
“I’ll head back to the village, relax and do a bit of training this afternoon and refocus for tomorrow morning.”
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The PR2 Mixed Double Sculls crew of Simon Albury and Kathryn Ross crossed third in their heat posting a time of 8:51.39 behind race favourites Great Britain and the Ukraine, who pipped them at the line having trailed the Aussie until the final 500m.
Ross, who has rowed at every Paralympic regatta since the since was introduced in 2008, said that they were really happy with the result.
“Super stoked, our game plan was to come top three to put us in a good repechage race and we executed exactly what we wanted. Super stoked,” she said.
“When you get the first one out of the way it settles the nerves quite a fair bit cause you know what you’re capable of, what the course feels like under race conditions and it’s nice to see what we can do and how we can go and if we stick to our race plan hopefully we’ll execute what we plan to do.”
The PR3 Mixed Coxed Four came second in their heat behind red hot favourites the USA, posting a time of 7:30.72, and will go into the repechage with the fourth fastest time of the day. They will face Italy in the repechage who posted 7:32.07 in their heat.
Coach Elizabeth Chapman said the race was as they had expected and said “they did exactly what we wanted to do.”
“(We’re) quite happy with today. It’s exactly as we expected, we knew the USA would be strong and the point was to row our own race.”
“Our goal is gold in Paris and I think that today shows that if we keep working on it, get together more, we’ll be there.”
She said the crew were pleased with how they rowed and the outcome of the race.
“Satisfaction of a job well down, that’s what they said. Job done, now we crank it up a notch for the next one.”
Tom Birtwhistle, at his first Paralympics, said the emotion was immediate when they crossed the line.
“Everyone was pretty ecstatic, we’re kind of like stormed together and we’re forming and norming now and we’re starting to perform so the next two days we should hopefully come through.”
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Today’s results:
PR1 Men’s Single Sculls Heat 1
R. Campos Pereira (BRA): 9:57.59
E. Horrie (AUS): 10:32.92
J. Reza Munoz (ESP): 10:38.83
A. Chuvashev (RPC): 10:45.64
M Klemp (GER): 11:10.97
M. Munoz Malagon (MEX): 11:39.88
PR2 Mixed Double Sculls Heat 2
Great Britain: 8:42.27
Ukraine: 8:49.68
Australia: 8:51.39
Poland: 9:04.15
United States: 9:27.00
Uzbekistan: 9:31.91
PR3 Mixed Coxed Four
United States: 7:19.97
Australia: 7:30.72
Israel: 7:38.95
Canada: 7:43.84
Ukraine: 7:48.95
Spain: 8:08.53
Tomorrow’s racing schedule:
Erik Horrie: PR1 Single Men’s Sculls – Repechage 1 – 10.10am JPT/11.10am AEDT
Kathryn Ross and Simon Albury: PR2 Mixed Double Sculls – Repechage 1 – 10.50am JPT/11.50am AEST
James Talbot, Tom Birtwhistle, Nikki Ayers, Alex Viney, Renae Domashenz: PR3 Mixed Coxed four – Repechage 1 – 11.30am JPT/12.30pm AEST
By: Paralympics Australia
Posted: 27 August 2021
