The Elk Lake-based men’s quad sculls crew finished fifth in their heat.
The Langford- and PISE-based Canadian women’s sevens team and Victoria swimmer Ryan Cochrane represented the peaks and valleys of the opening day of competition Saturday in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics.
Rugby returned to the Olympics for the first time since 1924, and was played in the Games for the first time by women, as Canada got off to 2-0 start with a 45-0 victory over Japan and 38-0 win against host Brazil.
“We are building momentum,” said Jen Kish, captain of the world No. 3 Canadian squad.
“You have got to set the tone and we set it.”
Pool play concludes today at 7 a.m. against world No. 4 Great Britain, which is also 2-0. The Olympic quarter-finals begin at 1 p.m. today, with the medal rounds Monday.
The Canadian players have spent the past four years centralized in Greater Victoria preparing for this moment.
“We had a lot of nerves going into this,” said Kish.
“You don’t know what to expect. Even though Japan and Brazil are ranked below us, you never know. We channelled those nerves [and] we really performed and played as a whole 12. We used all our bench and that’s something special because not a lot of teams have a full-12 squad.”
But for Cochrane, it was the same old script as he failed to qualify in his minor event, the 400-metre freestyle, for the third consecutive Olympics.
The last two times, he was ninth in the 400 at both Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012 and missed the final by one spot. He was 11th Saturday in Rio, but it was still tight as he missed the final by just 4/10ths of a second with a clocking of 3:45.83.
“It’s frustrating, but it is what it is,” said Cochrane, in his poolside TV interview on CBC.
Cochrane said he thought he swam well. Yet he was well off his Canadian record of 3:43.46, which would have seen him through.
“It’s the Olympics and this is where you see the ups and the downs,” he said.
Once again at an Olympics, Cochrane has a week to sit and stew before his 1,500-metre freestyle specialty begins with qualifying Friday and the final next Saturday. So maybe he is just where he wants to be, in a strange sort of way: Cochrane responded to win bronze in the 1,500 freestyle as a surprise debutante at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and silver at the 2012 London Games.
Meanwhile, UVic Vikes fieldhockey products Brenden Bissett, Matthew Sarmento and Keegan Periera discovered why Germany is the two-time defending men’s Olympic champion in a 6-2 opening loss by Canada. Periera scored one of Canada’s goals against the clinical Germans.
In rowing, it was contamination in the Lagoa River that was supposed to be the potential issue, not swells. But choppy conditions is what the Elk Lake-based Canadian men’s quad sculls faced Saturday as they faded to fifth in their preliminary race after a crashing whitecap caused Rob Gibson to lose control of an oar to break the Canadians’ cadence. They must now go through the repechage.
Notable Island openings today in the Rio Games include Victoria rowers and medal contenders Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee in the women’s lightweight double sculls, Jamie Broder of Victoria in women’s beach volleyball and veteran national-team captain Fred Winters of Victoria against the arch-rival U.S. as Canada returns to the Olympics in men’s indoor volleyball for the first time since Barcelona in 1992.
Starting on Monday are the Elk Lake-based men’s rowing four, who were fourth at the 2015 world championships, and the Canadian women’s eight, with Caileigh Filmer and Christine Roper of Victoria and UVic Vikes product Antje von Seydlitz.