China's lightweight women's pair won the heat on Sunday, the second day of the Olympic rowing competition, but they failed to post a needed fast time to be among the medal favorites.
The crew of Xu Dongxiang and Yu Hua, who took the world cup title in Lucerne in June, won after holding off the fast-finishing crew of Denmark. They clocked a time of six minutes, 57.58 seconds, slower than seven boats in another two heats.
Dutch combination of Kirsten van der Kolk and Marit van Eupen, bronze medalists at the 2004 Athens Games, posted the fastest time in 6:50.90 in three heats.
Xu teamed with Yan Shimin to set the world best time of 6:49.77 in the lightweight doubles event in the world cup race in 2006.
"The Dutch crew are rather experienced as they won the bronze in Athens," said Xu, also world champion in 2006.
"In my first Olympics in 2004, I led in the first 1,000m, but after that I was quite absent-minded and didn't know what to do with the fast-approaching competitors," the 25-year-old said.
"Our performance is OK, and we did all we can do because it's the first race we compete in. We need to move forward," Yu said. "It's the Olympics, each team is very strong but we are almost at the same level."
The Chinese crew have very mixed results over the past years because they were quite often dogged with crew changes and the current combination was settled after the world cup in Lucerne.
"China is one of the best, and they are really dangerous. There is nothing really new now, and we did a good preparation so we'll make it," said Marit. "The other race was really close, so the semifinals will be harder."
(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2008)