KEY POINTS:
It was business as usual for gold medal favourite Mahe Drysdale and further progress for Emma Twigg with Olympic single sculls semifinals beckoning tomorrow.
Triple world champion Drysdale trailed at the halfway mark on the 2000m Shunyi course in his quarter-final, but eased clear to win the race with a strong third quarter. He had to hold off a strong finish from highly capable Swede Lassi Karonen in recording a smart 6:50.16.
With the first three placegetters automatically qualified for the semis, Drysdale's place was never in doubt.
Dutch sculler Sjoerd Hamburger was the surprise early pacesetter and led Drysdale by .97s at 1000m before fading to fourth. American Ken Jurkowski got the third semifinal spot.
"That was a nice step up for Mahe," New Zealand section manager Andrew Matheson said last night, referring to a soft heat on Saturday for the tall Aucklander.
Drysdale will have taken note of some familiar faces among the other quarter-final winners.
Fast but flaky German Marcel Hacker blitzed the first field in 6:48.85; Athens gold medallist Olaf Tufte of Norway won the second in 6:53.50 and Czech Republic sculler Ondrej Synek, whom Drysdale views as perhaps his toughest rival for gold, banged out a 6:50.04 in the third race.
Twigg moved smoothly into the semifinals by finishing third in her quarter-final.
Twigg had drawn tough opposition in the form of multi-world championship winner Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus.
Karsten won the race comfortably, in 7m 25.74s, with Swede Frida Svensson second in 7:29.29 and Twigg a further 4.95s back in 7:34.24. But third was good enough to advance and that trio had eased clear of the opposition well before halfway.
From then it was simply a case of Twigg holding her concentration and her technique.
The fourth placegetter, South African Rika Geyser, trailed in almost 10s behind Twigg.
Matheson was happy with the outcome, although suggested Twigg might not have been entirely content with her start. Seven rowers recorded faster times than Twigg over the four races, which will serve as a warning. "I think she did a really good piece in the middle part of the race. This was another step on the way," said Matheson.
Karsten was not the quickest qualifier into the semifinals. Bulgarian Rumyana Neykova, holder of the world's quickest time at 7:07.71 set six years ago, clocked 7:22.37 in winning the third of the four quarter-finals.
