Men's pair miss out on silverware, but 'Olympic qualification was the goal'

They may have finished last in the A-final at the world championships in Belgrade on Saturday, but the men’s pair of John Smith and Chris Baxter had already over-achieved just by making the top six.

Switzerland stunned the field to cross the line first in 6min 51.09sec, ahead of Britain (6:53.46) and Ireland (6:54.22). Defending champions Romania were fourth in 6:56.89.

Smith, an Olympic gold medallist from the 2012 London Games, and Baxter, a gold medallist from the 2022 under-23 world championships, ended last in sixth spot in 7:08.10, 16.61 seconds off the pace.

But that wasn’t a train smash — they had already qualified the boat for the 2024 Paris Olympics by making the A-final.

“The main goal for Belgrade was just to qualify,” said Smith, who returned to rowing after the Tokyo Games only this year. “I’ve only been training for three months so it was unexpected to make it into the A-final.

“I thought we’d have to race the B-final for the 12-to seventh places and try squeezing that top 11 for Olympic qualification.”

The men’s pair and the women’s double sculls, where Katherine Williams and Paige Badenhorst compete in the B-final on Sunday, need to finish in the top 11 in Serbia to book their Olympic spots.

But the men’s four needed to be in the top seven, and earlier in the day Henry Torr, Luc Daffarn, James Mitchell and Sandro Torrente ended fourth in the B-final.

They had needed to finish first, but were 5.88sec behind the victorious Romanian crew. 

South Africa went to Serbia with five boats, four of them Olympic classes. The men’s double sculls, a brand-new outfit, fell out of the running during the week.

“That was the goal,” said Smith. “To qualify our boat. We sat down and that was the plan. We said ‘we want to qualify this boat’.

“And I back myself to, even though I was in poor physical condition, I backed myself to bring the experience to try sneak a qualification spot. That was the reality.”

The boats that miss out in Belgrade will have an opportunity to qualify at a regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland, in May next year.

But the new reality for the men’s pair will be closing down a yawning gap of nearly 17 seconds in the next 10 months or so.