US rowers Michelle Sechser, Molly Reckford get one more chance at Olympic glory

VAIRES-SUR-MARNE, France – It’s the one that got away. For three years it’s driven them and consumed them and filled their dreams.

And on Friday, Michelle Sechser and Molly Reckford will have one more chance to make things right again.

Sechser and Reckford qualified for the lightweight women’s double sculls rowing finals Wednesday with a third-place finish in their semifinal heat at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.

Sechster and Reckford finished fifth in the same event at the 2020 Olympics, 1 second behind the gold-medal winning Italian team. On Wednesday, Sechster called that race “the best race that's ever happened in the sport of rowing” – less than 2 seconds separated all six finalists – and said she’s looking forward to facing much of the same competition with a medal on the line this week.

Great Britain, which finished 1/100th of a second out of bronze in the last Olympics, won Team USA’s heat Wednesday in a time of 6:59.79, followed by New Zealand (7:02.86). Ireland, Greece and Romania also qualified for the final.

Both Great Britian (Emily Craig and Imogen Grant) and Ireland (Aoife Casey, Margaret Cremen) return their same boats from Tokyo.

“It's been a carrot, it's been a demon, it’s been a lot of things over the past three years,” Sechser said. “But I can say, and I think we both feel this way, it's been a very different experience and it's been a very enjoyable experience. To get to work again at something we love every day is, I don't know what else I could ask for.”

Sechser, 37, likely is rowing in her last Olympics as lightweight doubles will be replaced by coastal rowing at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, part of a push by the International Olympic Committee to do away with weight-class division in non-combat sports.

She said getting a chance at a medal in a race that’s fueled her training for three years is “the most beautiful gift I could ask for and I am just thrilled that we get to be a part of it on Friday.”

“I’ve been dreaming about another chance to race in this lightweight double Olympic final again since Tokyo,” she said. “For anyone who's seen that race or has not seen that race, please go back to NBC or wherever you can find the footage, rewatch the Tokyo 2021 Olympic lightweight women's double final. It's incredible. I'm obviously biased, I think it's the best race that's ever happened in the sport of rowing.”

Sechser and Reckford won a silver medal in the world championships in 2022, finishing about 3 seconds behind Great Britian, and Sechser and Mary Jones took silver behind Great Britain again the next year, when Reckford rowed quadruple sculls in the open-weight division.

Sechser and Reckford reunited this spring and haven’t missed a beat on their way to the finals, though the pressure to win will be even more intense Friday.

“We have come home with hardware and have been performing well on the international stage,” Reckford said. “And so you internalize that pressure a little bit. And so in some ways I know that Michelle and I are fast enough to get it done, but there's also, that makes it more serious when people say, ‘Come home with gold.’ Because it's like, ‘Well, we actually (might).’ It's too close to possible to feel safe.”

Sechser said rowing with Reckford “is the most grounding and familiar thing that's in my life and I love that we get to do that together,” and when she paused while telling two reporters how meaningful it was to qualify for the final again, Reckford urged her to go on.

“You can to it, it’s OK,” she said.

“I've dreamt about having another chance at that race since then,” Sechser said. “There's so many steps along the ways. Over the past three years, everything Molly and I have gone through under the new system of rowing and rowing different boat classes and finding each other back together again that now that we're in position to have that second shot, which is something that never happens in sport, that I'm just so happy that on Friday we get to see our dear friends one last time.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: US rowers Michelle Sechser, Molly Reckford get shot at Olympic gold