The Australian Women’s Pairs crew of Annabelle McIntyre and Jess Morrison will fly out from the blocks without fear as they pursue Olympic gold in Paris.
Annabelle and Jess, dual world championship silver medallists in the pairs, will need to beat the highly fancied world champion Dutch crew of Ymkje Cleverin and Veronique Meester in a strong field.
“We are happy to be in the position we are in, and now it’s just about letting go and seeing how fast we can go,” Annabelle said.
“It’s all mental, in the final,” Jess said. “Now we can focus on the final and getting our head space right and attack, [searching for] the velocity we know we are capable of.”
The Rowsellas crew has drawn lane four for the final, with the Netherlands racing next to them in lane three. Also racing are crews from Lithuania, the US, Romania and Greece.
Tara Rigney will race in the Women’s Single Sculls after she qualified for the A final.
Tara, a dual World Championship bronze medallist in the single sculls, finished second in her semi-final to the Dutch world champion Karolien Florijn in a performance that saw her be within half a length of Florijn’s lead before easing up in the last 500m to save energy.
The Rowsellas also have two more boats qualified for the A Finals – the Men’s Coxed Eights and the Women’s Coxed Eights.
The women’s eight of Hayley Verbunt (cox), Paige Barr, Sarah Hawe, Giorgia Patten, Jacqueline Swick, Georgina Rowe, Bronwyn Cox, Lucy Stephan OAM, Katrina Werry, placed third behind winners, the US and Canada in the repechage where the first four qualified.
Meanwhile, the men’s eight of Kendall Brodie (cox), Jack O’Brien, Angus Dawson, Alexander Purnell OAM, Jack Hargreaves OAM, Angus Widdicombe, Spencer Turrin OAM, Josh Hicks and Ben Canham finished fourth in their repechage behind the Netherlands, Germany and Romania who finished in that order. They also needed a top four finish to make the A Final.
Another high for Rowsellas was the win in the Women’s Double Sculls B Final by the crew of Harriet Hudson and Amanda Bateman, in a time that was a little under three seconds faster than the gold medal winning time by New Zealand in the A Final 48 minutes later.
In the Women’s Fours B Final, the Australian crew of Olympia Aldersey, Jean Mitchell, Lilly Alton and Molly Goodman signed off on their 2024 Paris Olympics with a third place.
The setback of the day though was the sixth place by Australia’s Men’s Four in the A Final.
The crew of Fergus Hamilton, Alex Hill OAM, Tim Masters and Jack Robertson went into the medal race with high hopes, but just weren’t able to click on the day when it mattered most.
Rupert Guinness
