Great Britain placed their first two boats into finals today when the women’s quadruple sculls and men’s eights bounced back from defeats earlier in the week to win repechages.
The men’s eight team of Andrew Lindsay, Ben Hunt-Davis, Simon Dennis, Louis Attrill, Luka Grubor, Kieran West, Fred Scarlett, Steve Trapmore and Rowley Douglas led by more than two seconds at 500 metres and never lost the initiative, winning their 2,000m race in 5min 38.59 seconds.
Italy (5min 41.23sec) also reached the final, while Russia (5min 43.88sec) and Holland (5min 44.91sec) finished third and fourth, respectively.
"Normally we respond to pressure quite well," Hunt-Davis said. "We had to perform today," added Attrill. "Today was our last chance."
The US (5min 43.22sec) edged Romania (5min 43.24sec) in the other repechage to reach the final, with the opening heat winners Croatia completing the field.
Earlier today, Guin Batten, Gillian Lindsay, Katherine Grainger and Miriam Batten had become the first British boat to qualify for a 2,000m Olympic final, despite racing together for just the second time.
The British quartet were quickest off the start and by the 500m mark had opened up a lead of 1.22sec over the crew from Denmark, with China further back.
The quad continued to push and by 1,500m were 5.51sec up on the field before coming home in 6min 30.96sec with Denmark second, 4.80sec back and also qualifying for the final.
In the other repechage, the US and Ukraine battled it out for the first half of the race before Ukraine established their authority to win in 6min 29.41sec.
The news was not as good for the British men’s lightweight double sculls team of Tom Kay and Tom Middleton, who finished third in 6min 43.25sec behind Switzerland (6min 35.39sec) and Greece (6min 38.78sec) to knock them out of medal contention.
The women’s eight also missed out on a place in the final after finishing fifth in their repechage in 6min 23.46sec with the Americans winning in 6min 17.36sec, followed by Canada (6min 17.62sec), Australia (6min 17.72sec) and Belarus (6min 19.42sec).
