Cris Nievarez will end his Tokyo campaign in the D Final after finishing in fifth in the first heat of the Semifinal C/D of the 2020 Olympic Rowing the men’s singles sculls at the Sea Forest Waterway, Thursday.
After getting rescheduled twice due to Tokyo’s weather conditions over the past few days, the race finally got underway on Thursday morning.
The 21-year-old Filipino upstart stopped the clock at 7:26.05, 23.56 seconds off heat winner Alvaro Torres Matias of Peru.
Nievarez was off to a decent start, after placing fourth at the first 50 meters, just milliseconds behind third-running Dara Alizadeh of Bermuda.
Halfway into the race, the Quezon-native started to slow down. Dara then pulled away from the former, causing a five-second gap between the C and D Finals.
Iraq’s Mohammed Khafaji took advantage of the situation to overtake Nievarez going into the final 500.
The D Final is scheduled for Friday at 7:35 a.m.
