Telegraph Journal - Thursday, July 29, 1999

Canadian lightweight four crew finish 0.3 seconds out of the medals at the Pan Am Games.

By KEVIN BARRETT

The dejected Canadian lightweight men's four rowing team of Ben Storey, left, Rothesay's Ed Winchester, David Boyes and Jeff Lay, right, rest in front of the victorious U.S. boat, background, after missing a medal yesterday in the 2,000-metre event at the Pan Am Games.

WINNIPEG - Ed Winchester has felt that uncomfortable knot in his stomach before, the one where the muscles wrap themselves together and do the kind, of handsprings and double loops gymnasts enjoy.

But the Rothesay rower never figured he'd run into another international rowing wall at the Pan American Games, where his lightweight rowing foursome was favoured to add to Canada's medal total and quite possibly strike gold.

Instead, the Canadians faded in the homestretch of a three-boat dash for second and eventually settled for fourth in the 2,000 metre final at Lake Minnedosa, missing a bronze medal by 0. 30 seconds.

It was a shocking result as the home boat not only lost to an Olympic-calibre foursome from the United States, but also dropped behind Mexico and Chile, not exactly powers on the global rowing scene.

"I am really disappointed," said a sombre Winchester outside a makeshift boating bullpen after the race.

"I have felt this way before many times in international rowing. We have had blown opportunities and this was another one of them.

"We still have the Worlds. We had a silver medal in the World Cup and the eights are going well. We have to look at this like a good week of training," said Winchester.

Despite the optimistic future in a bigger boat, it appeared the Canadians let a medal slip into the water in yesterday's event, conducted in balmy conditions with a light crosswind on the lake.

In the opening minutes, Canada started slowly, falling more than one second off the pace-setting U.S. boat in the first 500m.

Then, with Winchester calling the stroke pace, they kicked into gear to sit second after the 1,000m mark and maintained that position after the three-quarters, gaining slightly on the eventual winners, as well as leading the Chilean's by two seconds and the Mexicans by three seconds.

"I think we were rowing well at that point and then the wheels started to fall off," said Winchester of the final dash for home.

Midway through the final stage, the Mexican boat caught and passed the Canadians en route to a silver medal and, shortly before the line, Chile nipped past Canada on the final few pulls for the bronze.

"In the last 500 metres, we were really hurting." Winchester explained. "We lost the silver with 250 to go to Mexico, but we still had the bronze sewn up and then, in the last five strokes, they squeaked by us. It was heartbreaking."

Tuesday, the Canadians finished third in a meaningless heat, posting a time of 6:53.13.

Predictably, the pace picked up yesterday, but Canada's time of 6:08.21 fell agonizingly short to the Chileans, who earned their second rowing medal of the games.

"We went as hard as we could, but we were spinning our wheels," said Winchester. "There was so much pain at the end.

"There is nothing we could do. We thought it was between us and the United States but it turns out, we weren’t properly geared up."

The championship boat of Marcus Schneider, Thomas Auth, Paul Teti and William Carlucci were just one of two A level boats of the 14 the U.S. sent to Winnipeg and it paid off with a gold medal run in 6:02.97.

"The guys are pretty broken up right now," said Winchester of his teammates Ben Storey, David Boyes and Jeff Lay.

"We are just trying to find any kind of positive from this."

The Canadians have been busy for the past month and last week's training regimen consisted of 17 spirited workouts before the team arrived in Winnipeg Sunday.

Winchester and his crew will compete in a Commonwealth event this week in London, Ont. and then pre- pare for the World Championships, beginning with heats in the eight-man boat on Aug. 22.

Yet, Winchester isn't offering any excuses for his team's effort yesterday.

"That [the schedule] is not why we didn't race well today. We were not properly geared up [psychologically] for it. Those other crews really wanted it and they had a great race.