Australian rowers Jess Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre have progressed to the semi-finals of the women’s pairs by setting the fastest time in the heats at the Vaires-Sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.
The pair won heat four in a time of 7mins 16.58secs while The Netherlands was next fastest in 7mins 17.81secs to win heat one.
Despite qualifying fastest, Jess said she and Annabelle had plenty of improvement left in them ahead of the semi-finals on 31 July at 6.54pm AEST.
"Technically we can improve parts of our stroke and adapt to the conditions differently than we did today,” Jess said.
"There are different parts of the race, where we can make tactical moves and find speed more efficiently, that's the art of rowing and we're always looking to improve that."
Annabelle said the quality of the Olympic field would make for exciting semi-finals.
"We've seen over the last couple of years all boat classes have gotten faster and in particular the women's pair,” Annabelle said.
"I can think off the top of my head four or five different boats that are going to be really hard to beat this year so it's pretty exciting."
In the men’s pairs, Patrick Holt and Simon Keenan finished fourth in their heat and will race in the repechage on 29 July at 4.20pm AEST.
Olympia Aldersey, Jean Mitchell, Lily Alton and Molly Goodman were fourth in their heat of the women's fours and will also race the next round repechage on 30 July at 7.30pm AEST.
The Men's Fours of Timothy Masters, Jack Robertson, Fergus Hamilton and Alex Hill are straight through to the A Final on 1 August 8.10pm AEST after finishing second in their heat behind the US.
Jack said he was confident the team could go up a level for the final.
“We have a few more days and maybe the personality of our crew comes across as pretty calm because that’s who we are, but we’re also racers and we love getting out there and showing everyone what we’re capable of,” he said.
Reece Homfray
