PARIS — The Island-based Canadian women’s eight rowing team insisted that going through the repechage wasn’t a bad thing in the quest to defend its Olympic title from Tokyo because it’s hard to find international competition training on Quamichan Lake in North Cowichan, while European nations race each other more often because of proximity. So a positive spin was the extra race meant more race experience for Canada.
The theory played out as Canada placed second in the repechage Thursday at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium to advance to Saturday’s Olympic final. The U.S. won in six minutes, 03.93 seconds to Canada’s 6:04.81 and third-place Australia’s 6:06.09. Fourth-place Italy (6:09.65) was the final team to book their place in the final. They will join Great Britain and Romania, which both advanced Monday after winning the first qualifying races. Canada was a disappointing third in its qualifying race Monday and appeared to learn a lot from that and re-adjusted its approach Thursday in the repechage.
“We wanted to go into this race focusing on our start. We tend to be middle pacers, and in our last race, we let our start slide too much,” said crewmember Kristina Walker of Victoria, following the repechage.
“We concentrated on our start and that allowed us to project ourselves more into the race.”
This was just the required next step, added crewmember Abby Dent: “You don’t check the box until you are finished that final. I’m excited to see what this crew can lay down on Saturday. We have a lot more in store here and let’s see what we’ve got.”
Canada also came out of the repechage in Tokyo to win gold.
So go new crew newcomers such as Walker and Dent, so will go Canada’s chances in the final.
University of Victoria Vikes grad Avalon Wasteneys of Campbell River, Brentwood College grad Sydney Payne, Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski and coxswain Kristen Kit are returning in Paris from the Tokyo Olympic gold-medallist crew. Everybody knows what they can do and what they have done.
Added have been Tokyo Olympic pairs bronze-medallist Caileigh Filmer of Victoria, Walker and Jessica Sevick of Victoria, Maya Meschkuleit from Yale of the Ivy League and 2023 Santiago Pan Am Games gold medallist Dent.
While Mount Douglas Secondary graduate Filmer is an Olympic medallist and proven producer, the pressure will be on Olympic rookies Walker, Sevick, Meschkuleit and Dent to come through in the crucible of the final Saturday.
“It’s a completely different crew but equally, if not more, talented,” said Gruchalla-Wesierski, who returned in time for her golden moment in Tokyo, after being seriously injured in a cycling accident during a team-building exercise at Strathcona Park just before the pandemic-delayed previous Games in 2021.
“I really value the young bucks in the boat and the spiciness they bring. We’re trying to pull them up but they are pushing us forward.”
That will be evident or not Saturday. This is the lone Canadian boat in the 2024 Paris Olympic finals and it has a tradition to uphold as Canada has never failed to medal in rowing in the Olympic Games, winning 43 medals from the sport’s introduction at St. Louis in 1904 to the pandemic delayed 2020 Tokyo Games.
