Mustang, three alum rowers advance at Olympics

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By Communications Staff
Monday, August 11, 2008
Western Mustangs rower Cam Sylvester advanced to the semifinals of the men's lightweight doubles at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, early Sunday, Aug. 10.
Sylvester (Caledon, Ont.) and Douglas Vandor (Dewittville, Que.) clocked a time of 6:17.58 in the preliminary heat to advance to the semifinal round finishing nearly three seconds behind the leading crew from Denmark. It was the fifth fastest preliminary time.
 
The duo will next race in the A/B semi-final on Wednesday Aug. 13, between 2:30-5:30 a.m. eastern time.
 
Three Canadian crews advanced to the semifinal round on the day after strong preliminary races during heavy rain in Beijing.  
 
The men's lightweight four of Mike Lewis and Iain Brambell of Victoria, B.C., Liam Parsons of Thunder Bay, Ont., and Jon Beare of Toronto also used a second-place finish to advance in a time of 5:52.13. Denmark won the heat by over two seconds in a time of 5:50.12. Brambell, Parsons and Beare are all former Mustangs.  
 
The crew placed fourth at last year's world championships to secure Olympic qualification, but has struggled this season.
 
"We had an unfortunate World Cup this year," Brambell told CBC Sports and the Canadian Press. "We were just a little off of where we wanted to be but certainly today we've shown that we've done the work and we've always been ready to do this. It's just a matter of doing it at the right time."  
 
In women's doubles, Melanie Kok (St. Catharines, Ont.) and Tracy Cameron (Shubenacadie, N.S.) finished second in their women's double heat. Kok and Cameron crossed the line in a time of six minutes 54.07 seconds to finish behind Germany, who won the second heat in 6:51.96.  
 
Meanwhile, the Canadian women's quadruple sculls team of Rachelle de Jong of Regina, Anna-Marie de Zwager of Victoria, Janine Hanson of Winnipeg and Krista Guloien of Port Moody, B.C., finished third in its heat and will row in the repechage later in the week. 

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