KEY POINTS:
BEIJING - Steven Ferguson and Mike Walker reckon the risk was worth it after making a sneaky booking of lane one for the Olympic K2 1000m kayaking final.
Spectators and officials were left scratching their heads after the New Zealand crew deliberately slowed down over the final 100m of yesterday's semifinal, giving up a healthy lead and allowing Latvians Krists Straume and Kristaps Zalupe through to win.
With a top-three finish needed to advance to tomorrow's final, second place gave the same outcome for Ferguson and Walker, with one crucial difference.
"We knew if we wanted lane one, we had to get second," Ferguson told NZPA.
"Watching what happened in the rowing, there was a definite advantage in lanes one, two and three.
"We're relying on that and hopefully we can get an advantage out of it."
If New Zealand won yesterday, they would have been allocated lane eight in the nine-boat final, on the side of the course they believe is more exposed to the prevailing late afternoon winds.
The K2 final is at 4.35pm Beijing time (8.35pm NZT), the time of day when the New Zealand men's and women's double sculls rowers competed in the their finals on Saturday. Those races resulted in trifectas for crews in lanes one to three.
"We've seen it happen in a lot of events over the last couple of years," Ferguson said.
"You don't always get the chance to dictate your lane but we did today so we went for it, hopefully it will be a big gain for us."
The tactic carried an element of risk. They finished just 0.48sec ahead of third placed China and 0.63 ahead of Belgium in fourth.
Ferguson said the plan was for him to monitor the other boats and for Walker to slow his stroke rating.
However, Ferguson was so busy looking that he lost timing with a couple of strokes, chopping their momentum back further than planned.
"It got pretty close but everything's a risk if you want to make big gains," he said.
"In the end we timed it pretty well."
The pair's green, yellow and red boat jostled for the early lead and had streaked in front by the 750m mark.
It was a big improvement on their heat paddle when Walker struggled with nerves and one of their seats dislodged.
"And we were still only at 80 per cent today and when we finished we were only doing 10 per cent," Ferguson said.
"We've got a heck of a lot more to give. Hopefully it will be a good final."
Ben Fouhy also had reason to smile yesterday, discovering some form of old with a strong second behind Australian Ken Wallace in his K1 1000m semifinal.
A repeat of his silver medal at the 2004 Athens Games still appears beyond Fouhy but he was a level above his heat effort both physically and psychologically.
Gone was the doubt that followed his opening race.
"I've had my tail between my legs a fair bit here, as most people know. Monday only confirmed those reservations," he said.
"I had to do a bit of soul-searching, dig pretty deep and find something.
"I raced a lot more aggressively, just really went for it and that's all I could do."
Fouhy had to make up ground from the 750m where he was fourth, sliding past Swedish and South African foe.
"Fortunately I found something today, it's all on."
- NZPA
