45°
Fairfield County rowers finished competing Sunday in the World Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia. Although none of the rowers from area communities medaled, many raced well enough to qualify their boats for next year's Summer Olympics.
Charlie Cole of New Canaan was on the men's four that finished fourth Sunday, which qualified the U.S. for next summer's Olympics in the event. The crew for the Olympics will be set next year.
Coxswain Alex Stein of Stamford and Andrew Johnson of Greenwich helped the Adaptive Mixed Four with coxswain take a sixth place finish in Sunday's A final. The U.S. finished three hundredths of a second behind Ireland. The U.S. crew qualified for next year's Paralympics.
Nick LaCava of Weston was on the lightweight men's eight that finished fifth Sunday. On Saturday, Rowayton's Brian de Regt and New Haven's Jon Winter rowed in the C final and finished second, 14th overall in the regatta. The boat did not qualify for the Olympics.
"Fortunately, the dream ain't dead,'' de Regt wrote on a blog from Bled. "There are two more spots up for grabs in the lightweight double this coming summer in Lucerne at the ominously named Last Chance Qualifier. While it's hard to peg exactly what you did right and what you did wrong, there are some clear areas of improvement. And while it would have been nice to spend this next year training knowing that the US had a slot, this could be the kick in the (butt) that I needed to push through to the next level of speed."
In earlier finals, New Canaan's Andrew Campbell finished fourth in the lightweight singles sculls. Norwalk's Dan Walsh rowed on the Men's Eight.
Complete information is available on the USRowing website.
Follow Tom Renner on Twitter.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Norwalk and receive free news updates.
