Only ten boats were entered in 1000-meter K4. The winners of the two preliminary heats, Slovakia and Hungary, advanced straight to the final, while the other eight boats battled it out in a single semifinal heat. There, Australia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Russia, Romania, and Denmark earned the right to compete for medals in Thursday's final, and Serbia and China were eliminated.
The fastest time of the day was Australia's 2:52.505 in the semifinal. That's just shy of 13 miles per hour on average.
The 1000-meter C2 was also a small class, with only twelve boats entered. The winners of the two opening heats, Germany's Peter Kretschmer and Kurt Kuschela and Azerbaijan's Sergiy Bezugliy and Maksim Prokopenko, went straight through to Thursday's A-final. The Azerbaijani tandem has won two of the last three silver medals at the world championships.
The remaining ten boats competed in two five-boat semifinals, with the top three in each making the A-final, the rest the B-final. The most accomplished boat among these was the Romanian pair of Liviu Dumitrescu and Victor Mihalachi, world champions in 2010 and bronze medalists at the worlds in '11. They finished a comfortable third in their semi to make the A-final.
Next came the 500-meter K1W event, and a field that included one of the two U.S. athletes in this regatta. Carrie Johnson of San Diego had no trouble making it out of the heats. With 25 paddlers entered in this class, only one would be eliminated in the four preliminary heats (that unfortunate person was Arezou Hakimimoghaddam of Iran). The rest would fill out three eight-boat semifinal heats. In each semifinal, the top two would advance to the A-final, with an additional two advancing on the basis of their times. Two more from each semi would make the B-final, plus two based on time.
Surely the most compelling story in this event is that of Italy's Josefa Idem, who is competing in her eighth Olympic Games (a record among women) at age 47. Idem raced for West Germany in 1984 and 1988; then, after meeting and marrying her current coach, Italian citizen Guglielmo Guerrini, she has competed for Italy from 1992 until now. Overall she has won five Olympic medals, including a gold in 500-meter K1W in 2000. She was also world champion in 1990 and 2001.
In her semifinal today, Idem was in sixth place at the 250-meter mark, but finished strong to win the race and move on to the A-final. Joining her in the A-final will be 2011 world silver medalist Danuta Kozac of Hungary and 2010 world bronze medalist Rachel Cawthorn of Great Britain. Sadly, Carrie Johnson was the fastest paddler not to make either the A-final or the B-final, finishing sixth in her semi.
The final event today was the 500-meter K2W. With 17 boats entered and two eight-boat semifinals, once again there would be one unlucky pair eliminated in the heats, and that turned out to be the Japanese team of Shinobu Kitamoto and Asumi Ohmura.
The Hungarian team of Natasa Janics and Katalin Kovacs is one to watch in this event. As Greg Barton wrote in this article for Bloomberg,
The biggest story on the women’s side is Natasa Janics. A native of Serbia, Janics competed for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 2000 Olympics and then moved to Hungary. In 2004, she won gold medals for Hungary in both the 500-meter singles and 500-meter doubles (with partner Katalin Kovacs). In 2008, Janics and Kovacs repeated their gold-medal performance in Beijing. After taking time off to have a child in 2011, Janics is again the gold-medal favorite in the 200-meter singles and has a chance for a third Olympic victory with Kovacs in the 500-meter doubles.Tomorrow the first flatwater sprint medals will be awarded for this Olympics. We'll see finals in 1000-meter men's single kayak, 1000-meter men's single canoe, 1000-meter men's double kayak, and 500-meter women's four-person kayak.
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