Three Boats Qualify for Paralympic Games

Credit: US Rowing

Three Boats Qualify for Paralympic Games

Three boats earned their spots on the U.S. Paralympic Team on Wednesday, while finals are now set in the Olympic-class events, at the second 2020 U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Team Trials – Rowing.

The winners of the PR2 mixed double sculls, PR1 women's single sculls and PR1 men's single sculls qualified for Tokyo with their victories in today's finals.

In the PR2 mixed double sculls, Bair Island Aquatic Center's Laura Goodkind (Los Angeles, Calif./Whittier College) and Russell Gernaat (Redwood City, Calif.) dominated their final, crossing the finish line with a time of 8:42.60. The duo finished more than two minutes ahead of the Community Rowing boat of Patrick Ward (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) and Jennifer Fitz-Roy (Brighton, Mass.) Gernaat earned his first Paralympic berth, while Goodkind will be racing in her second Paralympic Games.

"It's great," Goodkind said. "The boat is really picking up, getting faster each time we train together. This was a great opportunity to row down the buoyed course and have some contenders. We've been partnered for a little more than two years now. The goal has always been Tokyo, and this is a stepping-stone to that. It's great to be on this journey together."

In the PR1 women's single sculls, 2018 World Rowing Championships bronze medalist Hallie Smith (Washington, D.C./Smith College), rowing out of Community Rowing, Inc., raced uncontested to secure her first Paralympic berth. Smith finished with a time of 12:51.31.

"This is a really big deal to me," Smith said on qualifying for Tokyo. "Ever since I became disabled, this has been my dream. I've watched the Paralympics every year since 2014, when I really got into them, and it's a complete dream come true and a culmination of a lot of work."

In the PR1 men's single sculls, San Diego Rowing Club's Blake Haxton (Columbus, Ohio/Ohio State University) also raced uncontested, crossing the finish line in a 10:58.06 to secure his second Paralympic berth. The six-time national team member placed fourth in the event at the 2016 Paralympic Games. Haxton, who took up para canoe in 2019, will get his chance to qualify for the Paralympics in that sport next month in Szeged, Hungary.

"It feels good to make it," Haxton said. "It feels a little surreal after all of this, but it feels really good. I haven't raced rowing in like a year and a half, which is the longest time I've been out of a boat in six or seven years. I'm trying to make the sprint canoe team and the last-chance qualification regatta is in May, so that's job number one and pretty much the whole focus for the next month to see if I can get qualified in that."

While the first four names were added to the Paralympic roster, Wednesday's racing also set the stage for the next Olympic roster spots to be filled. The top two finishers in each of today's semifinals of the women's double sculls advanced to tomorrow's final for their shot to earn an Olympic berth.

In a hotly contested first semifinal, the USRowing Training Center – Princeton crew of Jenifer Forbes (Baltimore, Md./Northeastern University) and Sophia Vitas (Franklin, Wis./University of Wisconsin) held off a hard-charging Cambridge Boat Club/Sarasota Crew composite boat of Michelle Sechser (Folsom, Calif./University of Tulsa) and Molly Reckford (Short Hills, N.J./Dartmouth College) to win the race by 0.23 seconds. Forbes and Vitas clocked a 7:02.52, with Sechser and Reckford finishing in a 7:02.75. The Boston Rowing Federation/Cambridge Boat Club composite crew of Maggie Fellows (Warwick, Mass./St. Lawrence University) and Cicely Madden (Weston, Mass./Brown University) finished another 0.35 seconds back in third, just missing a spot in the final.

"The goal for today was to keep it really simple, just focus on the basics," Forbes said. "We're racing it one day at a time, one stroke at a time – same thing we've been doing all week."

For Sechser and Reckford, who won the lightweight women's double sculls at the first Olympic trials in February, this week has been a great opportunity to test their speed as they prepare for the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta next month.

"It has been even better of an experience than I expected coming into this in terms of getting to race, what we'll learn, progressing through the time trial, the heat, the rep, the semis," Sechser said. "What Molly and I are learning as a crew, this is great. We definitely needed this to keep building towards Switzerland, and the women's doubles' field this year is great. There's so much depth."

In the second semifinal, the Cambridge Boat Club/ARION composite crew of Gevvie Stone (Newton, Mass./Princeton University), a 2016 Olympic silver medalist in the women's single sculls, and Kristina Wagner (Weston, Mass./Yale University) took the lead just before the midway point of the race and rowed to a two-second victory over New York Athletic Club's Meghan O'Leary (Baton Rouge, La./University of Virginia) and Ellen Tomek (Flushing, Mich./ University of Michigan), the 2016 Olympic finalists in the event.

O'Leary and Tomek led early in the race before Stone and Wagner, who finished second and third, respectively, in the women's single at the first 2020 Olympic Team Trials in February, powered into the lead. Stone and Wagner crossed with a time of 7:04.18, with O'Leary and Tomek finishing in a 7:06.36. The Cambridge duo of Alison Rusher (West Bend, Wis./Stanford University) and Mary Jones (Huntsville, Ala./University of Tennessee) finished third.

While six boat classes are being contested in New Jersey, just four – the women's double sculls, PR1 men's single sculls, PR1 women's single sculls and PR2 mixed double sculls crews – will lock up their spots for Tokyo, pending USOPC approval. The winners of the men's pair and men's quadruple sculls will earn the right to race at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta May 15-17 to try to claim their spots on the Olympic roster.

In the repechage of the men's quadruple sculls, the Green Racing Project composite boat of Matthew O'Leary (Westwood, Mass./Harvard University), Jacob Plihal (Vashon Island, Wash./Northeastern University), Lucas Bellows (Forest Lake, Minn./University of Minnesota) and Travis Taaffe (Sarasota, Fla./Harvard University) won the race in a 6:05.80, with the Penn AC composite boat of Chris Shirley (Ladue, Mo./University of Minnesota), Thaddeus Babiec (Alexandria, Va./Boston University), Casey Fuller (Newtown, Conn./Fairfield University) and David Judah (Fairmount, Ga./Georgia Tech) finishing second in a 6:07.51 to also advance. They will join the heat winners in tomorrow's final.

In addition to the finals of the women's double sculls and men's quadruple sculls, the men's pair final also will be raced tomorrow. Olympians Tom Peszek (Farmington Hills, Mich./University of Michigan) and Mike DiSanto (Boston, Mass./Harvard University) will race uncontested in order to solidify their right to compete at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta. Peszek, a 10-time national team member, is trying to make his second Olympic Games. He raced the pair at the London 2012 Olympics, finishing eighth. DiSanto, a six-time national team member, finished fourth in the eight at the Rio 2016 Olympics.