One of the favorites for the rowing eights gold medal, Australia, suffered a broken rudder in their heat race yesterday, forcing them to limp home in last place.
The eights team, which includes three-time gold medalist James Tomkins, veered off course and almost hit world champions Canada in the next lane before they eased off the pace and realigned themselves.
It meant they missed out on qualifying straight through to the final on Sunday at the Shunyi Rowing Center and must now finish in the top four of a five-boat repechage today to stay alive.
PHOTO: AP
Canada and the US were the teams automatically through.
“We were happy with how they started, but it’s very disappointing, the rudder caught and jammed,” said head coach Noel Donaldosn, who knows a failure like that would ruin their medal hopes if it had happened in the final.
Tomkins, racing at his sixth Olympic Games, said: “We had a bit of a steering issue right from the start and after about 700m it got too hard to manage. We veered into the lane beside us where the Canadians were and we did a great job of not hitting them.”
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