The US Men’s Eight with Old Lyme’s Austin Hack as stroke was victorious in a thrilling Olympic qualifying race yesterday in Lucerne, Switzerland. This win books the crew’s ticket to Rio — way to go, Austin and Team USA!
We reprint below a section of a report on today’s races from worldrowing.com. Read the full report at this link.
Men’s Eight (M8+) – Final
In 2004 the United States won the Olympic men’s eight. In 2012 they finished fourth. Today they raced in the middle lane of this qualifying final. Only two boats would make it to the Rio Olympics and there were five boats in with a chance. At the first marker Poland was in the lead with Australia following in second. But there was really nothing between these two crews with the United States also getting away very quickly as just one and a half seconds covered the whole crew.
Then going through the 800m mark the United States did a piece and they got their nose in front. The United States stroke man Austin Hack was keeping the stroke rate up and following the motivational calls being fed out by coxswain Samuel Ojserkis. Then Poland moved up as the final sprint came into view. There was nothing in it. Less than two seconds separated the top four boats and there was just 500m left to row. Only Spain was off the pace. The United States hit 41 strokes per minute. Poland was also on 41. Italy hit 39. Italy had missed out by just 0.36 of a second. The United States and Poland have booked their spot in Rio. The US time was just 10 seconds outside of the World Best Time. Poland’s coxswain, Daniel Trojanowski then stood up in the boat applauding his crew.
Rio Olympic Qualifiers: USA, POL
Austin Hack, United States of America – first
“We knew someone would shoot out right from the start, which happened indeed. But we trusted our middle 1000. We have a great base. At the halfway mark I had no clue where we were. Once we crossed the finish line, I still wasn’t sure if we qualified. It is still really surreal.“
Piotr Juszczak, Poland – second
“We had to change a lot of things from the first race because we were just giving too much energy. We stayed economical and calm today. Once we were in front, we were confident.”