Wednesday's repechages of all four boat classes have determined the A and B finalists for the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games Rowing regatta at the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park.
In the first repechage of the day, Liudmila Vauchok (Belarus) and Svitlana Kupriianova (Ukraine) advanced to Thursday's A final of the Women's Single Sculls AW1x by finishing first and second, respectively, in slight headwind conditions.
The rowers were far too good for third place getter Agnese Moro (Italy) and the rest of the field - the result reversing Kupriianova's victory over Vauchok at the 2008 World Cup regatta in Poznan, Poland.
China's outstanding qualification results at the first-ever Paralympic Rowing regatta continued when Zhang Jinhong took the second repechage 13.34 seconds in front of fellow A final qualifier, reigning world champion Claudia Santos (Brazil).
While Zhang led from the start, Santos had a great battle with Martyna Snopek (Poland) for second place and the last finals berth - a lift in stroke rate over the final 200 meters seeing her advance to the medal race and Snopek relegated to Thursday's B final.
Vauchok, Kupriianova, Zhang and Santos will now line up in Thursday's main race against Helene Raynsford (Great Britain) and Laura Schwanger (United States), who pre-qualified with strong heat wins on Tuesday.
With Great Britain's world champion and world-best timesetter Tom Aggar and Ukraine's Oleksandr Petrenko already in Thursday's final of the Men's Single Sculls AM1x, competition for the remaining four places was expectedly fierce.
Tan Yeteng (China) and Ronald Harvey (United States) staged a tense two-way battle for the entire length of the 1000m course to take out the first of the Men's repechage races. Little separated the frontrunners for most of the journey, but a powerful effort by Tan with 200m to go saw him victorious by a length and a quarter (4.72 seconds).
They'll be joined in Thursday's final by Israel's Eli Nawi and Australia's Dominic Moneypenny, who both improved on lackluster Tuesday heat rows to give themselves a chance at securing a medal. Nawi was particularly impressive, turning a 4.22 second advantage over the field at the 500m halfway mark into a 13.15 second win.
Australia's Kathryn Ross and John Maclean produced one of the most controlled victories of the day when they took out the first repechage of the Mixed Double Sculls TA2x over Great Britain's James Roberts and Karen Cromie with a winning margin of 10.50 seconds. The United States finished third, a second slower.
Australia and Great Britain advance to Thursday's A final along with repechage 2 first and second placegetters Italy and Poland. Tuesday heat winners China and Brazil pre-qualified in the heats for Thursday's final and head into the medal race as co-favorites.
Heat winners Italy and China retain their co-favoritism for the Mixed Coxed Fours LTA4+ gold medal, but 2008 World Cup champions Great Britain and the United States sent ominous warnings with strong Wednesday repechage wins.
Canada and slightly out-of-form world champions Germany were second in their repechages and also qualified for the medal race while Brazil and Russia can count themselves unfortunate to be lining up in the B final after finishing mere seconds behind the qualifiers.
(BOCOG September 10, 2008)