A lakeful of self-belief and an ocean of determination, insisted Karen Bennett, was enough to ensure the UK’s woman’s four rebounded from an initial stutter in Tokyo to reach Wednesday’s Olympic final.
Diverted into Sunday’s repechage following a poor opening heat, the crew of Bennett, Rowan McKellar, Harriet Taylor and Rebecca Shorten hit back for victory in 6:46.20 to qualify via the back door.
Bennett, a silver medallist in the eights in Rio, looked spent at the finish on Sea Forest Waterway as the Brits built a valuable early lead and then fended off Poland by 0.37 secs as their speed flew over 17 kilometres per hour.
“We knew what not to do,” the Scot, 32, said. “We had a really good debrief and we spoke about what we could do better and how we were going to do that. Even on the pre-paddle, we were straight on it.
“We all knew exactly what we wanted to do and we kept doing it every stroke. From stroke one we were on it and we backed each other up. And I definitely didn’t think there was ever a moment where I doubted we would do it. I just know that we were rowing well enough long enough and strong enough that we relaxed with every stroke.
“Even going into the last 500m, I thought: ‘we need to keep doing this.’ We trusted it and we came through and I thought we rowed really well.”
The men’s quad sculls also fought into a final which has now been pushed back to Wednesday because of the forecasted arrival of Typhoon Nepartak which threatens to blow the sport’s schedule apart.
The British quartet did enough to see off Estonia and win their repechage race in 5:55.91 and take their place among the six teams who will battle for the medals.
"The goal was top two but you've got to try and beat everyone if you want to do your best here,” said Angus Groom, with the Glaswegian now guaranteed to end his international career on the stage he wanted.
“Each race, we just want to try and win. We just want to make the boat go as quickly as possible and if that means we're three lengths up or an inch up, that's all we want to be.
"We're just trying to make our boat go as fast as possible from start to finish.”
Their female counterparts are out of the medal hunt with only a spot in the B final to look forward due to the errors that condemned them to fourth in repechage. "It's the Olympics,” rued Hannah Scott. “The one thing I've learned is that there's only seconds in it. You can't afford to make a mistake and ours came at the wrong time.”
Elsewhere, the men's double sculls pair of Graeme Thomas and John Collins came second in their semi-final to progress while Vicky Thornley’s third place in her quarter-final sent her onward to the women’s single sculls semis.
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