Rachael Thom­spon-King

T&T's Fe­lice Aisha Chow has been prepar­ing for this mo­ment for some time now and the day is here when she makes her de­but at the Olympic Games. To­day, she will line up in heat six of the women's sin­gle sculls in the row­ing event from 8.30 am (T&T Time) at Lagoa Sta­di­um in Ro­dri­go de Fre­itas lake in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

Chow made his­to­ry when she qual­i­fied for the Games in March with a per­son­al best time of sev­en min­utes and 49.96 sec­onds at the FISA Amer­i­can Olympic Con­ti­nen­tal Qual­i­fi­ca­tion Re­gat­ta held in Chile. Her pre­vi­ous two-kilo­me­tre per­son­al best time on the wa­ter was 7:56.00.

She is one of 32 na­tion­al ath­letes that will com­pet­ing in the world's biggest sport­ing event, which of­fi­cial­ly be­gan yes­ter­day with the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny.

The 39 year old T&T ath­lete will race out of lane two of the fi­nal heat and will have to come good to be one of three fin­ish­ers, who will ad­vance to the quar­ter­fi­nals. The re­main­ing crews will go to Repechage.

Her com­peti­tors in­clude New Zealan­der Em­ma Twigg in lane one, Paraguay's Gabriela Mosqueira in lane three, Michelle "Shel­ley" Pear­son of Bermu­da and Eka­te­ri­na Karsten (Be­larus) in lanes four and five, re­spec­tive­ly.

Chow goes in­to event know­ing that she will face some of the best row­ers, the world has to of­fer in Karsten, who is a two-time Olympic cham­pi­on and six-time World cham­pi­on. She won Olympic gold in sin­gle sculls in 1996 At­lanta and 2000 Syd­ney. In 2004 Olympics in Athens, the Be­laru­sian won a sil­ver medal and in 2008 she picked up a bronze. The 44 year old al­so won the World cham­pi­onships in sin­gle sculls in 1997, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009, was run­ner-up in 2002 and 2010 and got bronze in 2001 and 2003. She won the Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­onships in 2009 and 2010. She won the world ju­nior cham­pi­onships in 1990.

Twigg, who is 29, is the 2014 world cham­pi­on, the 2013 sil­ver medal­list and the 2010 and 2011 bronze medal­list at the world cham­pi­onships. She al­so com­pet­ed in the sin­gle sculls at the 2008 Bei­jing and 2012 Lon­don Olympics.

Mosqueira, 26, en­ters with some lev­el of Olympic ex­pe­ri­ence as she too con­test­ed the sin­gle sculls race at the 2012 Games, plac­ing sec­ond in Fi­nal D and 20th over­all.

Row­ing made its Olympic de­but at the Paris 1900 Games, and the par­tic­i­pants to­day will be part of a cen­tu­ry of tra­di­tion in the wa­ters of Rio de Janeiro, which is sur­round­ed by scenic moun­tains. Re­cent­ly sev­er­al Olympic row­ing com­pe­ti­tions have tak­en place on man-made cours­es, but row­ers in Rio will have to com­pete on a nat­ur­al body of wa­ter in the heart of the city.

Chow, like the oth­er row­ers, will have to con­tend with Rio's un­pre­dictable ocean breezes which in the re­cent past has had com­pe­ti­tions can­celled due to high winds.

The lo­cal ath­lete will have to pay clos­er at­ten­tion to her sur­round­ings as high winds can prove to be chal­lenge, but if prop­er­ly han­dled she can get a chance to chal­lenge for a spot on the podi­um, once she pro­gress­es to the quar­ter­fi­nals, she will com­pete on Tues­day. If not she will be in ac­tion to­day in the Repechages from 8 am.

MORE IN­FO

To­mor­row

Artis­tic Gym­nas­tics: Marisa Dick–Women's In­di­vid­ual All-Around Sub­di­vi­sions (Women's Floor Ex­er­cise, Vault, Un­even Bars, Bal­ance Beam), 8.45 am

Mon­day

Sail­ing: An­drew Lewis–Laser Stan­dard Men's One Dinghy–Race one, 12 noon; Race two, 1.30 pm.

Tues­day

Swim­ming: Dy­lan Carter–100m Freestyle heats, 12 noon

Sail­ing: An­drew Lewis - Laser Stan­dard Men's One Dinghy–Race three, 12 noon; Race four, 1.30 pm.

Wednes­day

Sail­ing: An­drew Lewis–Laser Stan­dard Men's One Dinghy–Race five, 12 noon; Race six, 1.30 pm.

Thurs­day

Ju­do: Christo­pher George–Men's elim­i­na­tion round (100 kg), 9 am

Swim­ming: George Bovell III–Men's 50m Freestyle heats, 12 noon

Sat­ur­day

Box­ing: Nigel Paul (T&T) vs Efe Ajag­ba (Nige­ria)–Su­per heavy­weight (+91 kg), 5.30 pm