Canada’s Big Boat Races to Finals Despite Obstacles

Despite a series of incidents, Canada’s “big boat” eased across the finish line more than seven seconds in front of the Polish team, sending them directly to the final on Sunday. The rowing heats and finals are being staged in mid-afternoon when tem (MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images)

Despite a series of incidents, the “big boat” eased across the finish line more than seven seconds in front of the Polish team, sending them directly to the final on Sunday.

The Canadian team appears to be stronger than ever, having learned a hard lesson from the 2004 Athens Games where they were defeated by the American team in the opening round. They never recovered from the loss and the defending champions were eliminated from the finals in fifth position.

“It’s nice now to be able to prepare for the final the way we want to prepare,” coxswain Brian Price told The Canadian Press. “In Athens, we were kind of expecting to go straight to the final and we didn’t. So that kind of threw us off a little. We had to do an extra race, which we weren’t used to doing. This time we’ve kept to the script.”

However, even a team this focused was unable to prepare for several unforeseen obstacles. “I tell you, this has been a bizarre Olympics,” said Athens silver medalist in the men’s four Jake Wetzel.

Monday’s race was actually originally planned for Sunday. The men’s eight team was half way through their pre-race warm-up when the event was postponed to Monday because of a powerful thunderstorm which brought intense rain and lightning.  

Then as the team lined up at the start on Monday their bow ball — a protective rubber device covering the sharp stern of the boat — was cut off by the starting gate. Although the ball is only a minor piece of equipment, it is essential for safety reasons and could have meant disqualification for the team. Fortunately, crew members quickly raised their hands and officials gave them the nod to race without it.

There was another close call at roughly the 750m mark of the 2000m race when Australia suffered a rudder jam which sent them veering into Canada’s lane. Luckily the Canadians were far enough ahead to be out of harm’s reach.

“We started to pull away, next thing we know, Australia’s in our lane,” Wetzel told CP. “In 10 years of rowing, I’ve never seen anything like that. It’s just bizarre. All of sudden we saw them coming over and they just about hit the back of our boat.”

Despite the series of sudden challenges, the team kept their cool, confidence and positive attitude.

“Even when something bad happens, you still end up on top and that’s why we train as hard as we do,” said Victoria’s Dominic Seiterle. “We don’t do it just to win by a second. On a good day, we‘ll win by 10 seconds. On a moderate day, we’ll still win by three or four seconds and on a really crappy day where everything goes wrong, we'll still win.”