Aisyah finishes last in her q-final
It was a race of two halves.
That was national rower Saiyidah Aisyah's assessment of her single sculls quarter-final race at Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas in Copacabana yesterday.
The 28-year-old, who is the first Singaporean rower to feature at the Olympic Games, started strongly in her race but faded in a tough field.
At the 1,000m mark - or the halfway point of the race - she was in fourth place, ahead of last year's Asian Games champion, Kim Ye Ji of South Korea.
But Aisyah eventually finished in 7min 56sec, placing her last among six rowers in Rio de Janiero.
Her time ranked her 20th among the 24 rowers in the quarter-finals.
Only the top three from each of the four quarter-finals advance to the 'A' and 'B' semi-finals.
New Zealander Emma Twigg, champion at the 2014 World Rowing Championships, won the quarter-final race, finishing around 35 seconds quicker.
GOOD COMPETITORS
"I was facing challenging competitors out there, really good competitors," Aisyah said after her race.
"I'm half-happy, half-unhappy.
"I think I did really well for the first half of the race (but) then I didn't manage to execute my race plan towards the finish.
"I think I was not focused on what I should have been focusing on.
"I was thinking about how imbalanced the boat was (and) how tense my arms were, when I was just supposed to be pushing my legs and counting the strokes."
Aisyah will now take part in the 'C' and 'D' semi-finals today, where she will compete for places 13th to 24th.
She previously told The New Paper that she was targeting a top-20 finish.
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