Choppy start leaves Hong Kong rowers facing a huge challenge

Hong Kong rowers will focus their training on countering the choppy waters of Lagoa lake after struggling in the heats of the men’s and women’s lightweight double sculls in Rio on Monday.

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Both teams finished last in their races after their heats were postponed from Sunday because of windy weather. Although the course was fit to race on, there was still a fair bit of wind and made for difficult conditions particularly from the halfway mark.

“This is the first time that we’ve raced in these conditions,” said Lee Ka-man, who raced with sister Lee Yuen-yin in the women’s lightweight double sculls. “We have to now try to practice more in these conditions to improve our chances.

“We’re not too happy because we expected better and the conditions affected our performance. We were hoping to be within under 20 seconds of the first boat but we were unable to do that.”

The two Lees clocked seven minutes, 29.87 seconds in their 2,000m race behind heat winners Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee, of Canada and the second-placed Polish pair of Weronika Deresz and Martyna Mikolajczak.

World champions Canada won their heat in 7:03.51 with Poland clocking 7:05.02. Germany were third ahead of the fourth-placed China crew.