India's Balraj Panwar's valiant effort went in vain as he agonisingly missed out on securing direct qualification to the quarterfinals of the men's single Sculls event on July 27, Saturday. Balraj, who is the only athlete for India in rowing, finished 4th in the heats round, finishing behind Thomas Mackintosh of New Zealand, Stefanos Ntouskos of Greece and Abdelkhalek Elbanna of Egypt and will now head into the repechage round.
Balraj had started off strongly as Mackintosh raced ahead to a big lead early on. The Indian rower was placed in the No.3 spot after a quick start but Elbanna quickly caught up to him and took the spot from him. The first checkpoint of 500 metres was completed by Elbanna in 1:41.94 as Balraj was just behind him at 1:43.53. The Indian rower was putting all the pressure on the Egyptian
Balraj was seen increasing his speed and the number of strokes per minute as the 1000m saw both men still close to each other as Mackintosh had stolen the march on the rest of the pack. While it did seem Elbanna was going to comfortably get home in the end, Balraj ensured that all the pressure was on the Egyptian as they entered the final 100 m.
However, it wasn't enough in the end as Balraj missed out, finishing the 2000 m heat in 7:07.11 as Elbanna finished 2 seconds ahead of him.
In each first round heat on the track, a certain number of athletes will guarantee their progress to the second round by finishing in the automatic qualifying positions (for example, the top 3 finishers in the heat, regardless of their finishing time).
Athletes who do not qualify by finishing in the automatic qualifying positions in round one heats will have a second chance to qualify for the semi-finals by participating in repechage heats.
This new repechage format will replace the former system, when athletes would advance through fastest times, sometimes known as 'lucky losers' in addition to the top placings in the heats.
