SA rowers get the Danube blues in battle for Olympic spots

● The bad news from the world rowing championships in Austria yesterday was that SA qualified only one boat for next year’s Tokyo Olympics.

Three crews went into B-finals gunning for lanes in Japan, but only Olympic medallists Lawrence Brittain and John Smith booked their tickets in the men’s pair.

They took third place racing on the Danube River, comfortably inside the topfive qualification blanket.

But six boats, one Games spot and no medals was not a great return for SA.

The good news is that SA’s two previous Olympic rowing medals, at Rio 2016 and London 2012, were both won by boats that had qualified from B-finals at the world championships the preceding year.

The worrying news, for one of Brittain and Smith perhaps, is that both those crews saw personnel changes between qualification and Olympic glory.

All the heavyweights in the men’s four — Jake Green, Sandro Torrente, Kyle Schoonbee and David Hunt — are ultimately trying to make the premier pairs boat.

To qualify for Tokyo yesterday, the four needed to make the top two in their B-final, and Kirsty McCann and Ursula Grobler had to win their lightweight double sculls B-final. But both ended last without giving any of their rivals much to worry about.

For both crews, Olympic qualification is now likely to come down to the so-called regatta of death in Lucerne in May next year. There, the top two finishers in each event will go to Tokyo and the rest can try to heal the heartbreak by dreaming about Paris 2024.

National coach Roger Barrow has much work to do to get his crews stronger, not just to qualify more boats for the Games, but to be able to challenge for medals once they get there.

Since the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) started insisting on tougher qualifying standards before 2012, Barrow has managed to get multiple crews to the last two Games.

SA had five boats at Rio 2016, and all of them competed for silverware in the A-finals, although only the men’s pair, featuring Brittain, made the podium.

Two boats went to London 2012, with Smith’s lightweight four winning gold.

The last time SA had just a single crew at an Olympics was Athens 2004, when Don Cech and Ramon Di Clemente took bronze in the men’s pair.