World champion Oliver Zeidler (Germany) sets a skiff world record on the Olympic rowing tournament in Paris, after recording a time of 6:35.77 minutes in the semi-finals, BTA reported.
He bettered by more than four seconds the previous best of 6:40.45 set by Greek Stefanos Douskos, who won the title at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
Belarusian Evgeny Zalati, competing under a neutral flag, also fell below the world record. He finished in 6:39.01 and also advanced to the final, while Duskos finished third in 6:40.78 and will defend his title.
In the first semi-final, the fastest was Simon van Dorp from the Netherlands with 6:42.39 minutes, and the top 3 was formed by New Zealander Tom McIntosh and Belgian Tim Bries. It is this six that will row in final A, and on Saturday in final C the Bulgarian Christian Vassilev will start.
Desislava Angelova, on the other hand, will row in the final A for the ladies, after setting a time of 7:27.16 minutes in the semi-finals. She finished behind Caroline Florein (Netherlands) and Tara Riney (Australia), while in the other semi-final, Olympic champion Emma Twigg clocked an impressive 7:17.19 for first place. Victoria Senkute (Lithuania) and Cara Kohler (USA) finished behind her.
World champion Netherlands triumphs with Olympic rowing title in women's back-to-back four at the Paris Games.
Marlus Oldenburg, Hermeinte Drent, Tinka Ofereins and Bente Boonstra won the final with 6:27.13 minutes.
They were in a tight battle for top spot with Great Britain's quartet throughout the course, but eventually managed to hold on to the lead, finishing 18 hundredths of a second ahead of the Rachice 2022 world champions.
The New Zealanders finished third in 6:29.08 minutes, fighting for the bronze, ahead of the world runners-up from Romania by 44 hundredths of a second.
Defending Tokyo 2020 champion Australia's quartet failed to qualify for Final A and finished ninth in the final standings.