Canadian Carling Zeeman advances to quarter-finals in choppy day on the water for rowers

By Pete Evans, CBC Sports

Canada's Carling Zeeman has advanced to the quarter-finals in the women's single sculls as the Olympic rowing competition kicked off in windy conditions Saturday.

The top three in each heat advance, and the 25-year-old from Cambridge, Ont., won her heat in a time of 8:41.12, well ahead of Ireland's Sanita Puspure and Nadia Negm of Egypt.

• VIDEO: Canada's Carling Zeeman rows to win in her opening heat
• SCHEDULE: Rowing events at Rio 2016

Zeeman is the only Canadian competing in the event. She will compete next on Tuesday morning in the quarter-finals. The medal round is set for a next Saturday, Aug. 13th.

The rowers are battling high winds and choppy water at Rio's picturesque Logoa Stadium, many struggling to stay in their lanes.

Many had to readjust repeatedly during the middle 1,000 metres of the race due to a strong crosswind knocking rowers off course. Times in all heats were well off Olympic and world record paces as a result.

"It was pretty rough," said Zeeman. "Through the middle … it was whitecapping. Those are tough conditions any time. The key for me was to just stay calm and stay cool and keep going, don't ever take an off-stroke or give up."

Zeeman said she took on "quite a bit of water."

"In the warm-up zone you get a sense of what the race is going to be like because it's the same water," she said. "I knew it would be a totally different sort of race because it was such a strong wind. From the start line I knew I had about 200 meters of calm water before the show started. Going into the race, that was plan — start hard and settle into a rhythm that I would be able to sustain for 2,000 meters."

Many struggled on the rough water.  Britain's Alan Campbell, who won his heat in the men's single sculls, said the conditions took him by surprise.

"He needs to spread his arms a bit more to protect us," Campbell said, nodding toward the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue towering over the rowing venue. 

Errant wave dampers Canadian men's hopes 

While Zeeman started brightly for Canada, the rest of the day didn't go as planned.

Brendan Hodge of South Delta, B.C., Maxwell Lattimer of Delta, B.C., Nicolas Pratt of Kingston, Ont., and Eric Woelfl of St. Catharines, Ont., will need to race in Sunday's repechage in the lightweight men's four after finishing fourth in their heat and missing a chance to book a spot in the semifinals.

And things got even worse when the men's quad of Julien Bahain — who was born in France but now competes for Canada — Will Dean of Kelowna, B.C., Kingston's Rob Gibson and Pascal Lussier of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., finished last in their heat.

The crew was in decent shape through 1,500 metres until disaster struck when a wave caused Gibson to lose the grip on his oar, forcing the Canadians to pause their strokes to get back on track.

"The conditions are pretty tough out there. I've taken millions of strokes in my career and that was by far the worst one I've ever taken," Gisbon told CBC's Karin Larsen.

"I lost my grip at the catch and my ore got spun around and I couldn't recover. I tried. It was just one of those things, unfortunately. It's extremely disappointing, frustrating right now. But we still have a chance. We know we have speed and we know we can hang with the crews."

The team will need a top-2 finish in Monday's repechage to make the final.

The quad required a last-chance qualifier just to make it to Rio and is one of two crews, along with the men's four, created in the wake of Rowing Canada's decision to scrap the popular and successful eights boat after the London Olympics.

World Rowing – the sport's global governing body – issued a statement after the races, saying the course conditions were deemed rowable, despite the wind gusts causing the rough water.

"We look at three important factors: safety, fairness and 'rowability,' " FISA President, Jean-Christophe Rolland said in the statement. "Today, we determined that the athletes were not in danger out on the course, the conditions were considered to be the same across the six lanes, and it was rowable, meaning boats were not sinking."

Serbian men's pair capsize

Indeed, no boats sunk, but it wasn't all happy rowing for the Serian men's team.

In another rowing event, the men's coxless pairs, Serbian rowers Milos Vasic and Nenad Bedik flipped their boat after appearing to "catch a crab" — a rowing term for when a rower can't get their oar out of the water on the backstroke in time. The boat capsized, flipping the two into the water.

They were unable to right their boat and complete their race, but FISA is throwing them a lifeline. A FISA executive committee decision ruled that Serbia would be granted permission to race in the repechage and therefore keep their racing hopes alive.

With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press