By Philip O’Connor
PARIS (Reuters) – After a week of peerless racing, Dutch rower Karolien Florijn went into her women’s single sculls final with a very simple plan and it paid off handsomely as she swept to an Olympic gold medal ahead of Tokyo champion Emma Twigg of New Zealand.
Knowing the vastly experienced Twigg would make her work if she wanted to wrest the Olympic title from the Kiwi, Florijn decided to stick to the basics.
“My race plan is very simple – try to have a quick start, continue to be fast and then see what’s left for the last 500 metres and just (leave) everything (out there),” she told Reuters after her gold-medal winning burst.
“I tried to react to Emma, because she also had a very good start. I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, I have to work today’, but it was really nice,” she added.
The 26-year-old Florijn has set the standard through the heats and semi-finals, but Twigg’s formidable reputation meant she could not take her lightly.
“I was confident, but you have to fight for it every time. I’m very sure (of myself), but today Emma really wanted to win the gold medal, so I had to work until the very end,” Florijn explained.
“It’s very special to be in this field with the strongest women in the world. I mean, the quality of the field is so good. And yeah, I respect all my opponents, they put so much work in this too.”
One of those who worked hardest was Lithuania’s Viktorija Senkute, who did not let her epilepsy bother her as she stormed past Australia’s Tara Rigney to snatch the bronze medal.
“It (epilepsy) means nothing to me – like, it’s not a limitation at all. And this is one of my missions, to share this, that people who have epilepsy just are normal, regular people, and they win Olympic medals,” an elated Senkute said.
“I kept doing what I want, what I love, and this led to fulfilling my dreams. I still can’t believe it, it’s so heavy!” she said, weighing her medal in her hand.
“I just knew if I kept watching straight and doing my strokes, and do the finish that I practise at home, I will be able to do it. When I saw Lithuania’s name, the rest is history,” she added.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor; editing by Ken Ferris)
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