Rower Dara Alizadeh Qualifies For Olympics

Dara Alizedah has qualified for the Olympic Games in Paris after finishing fourth in the men’s single sculls final at the World Rowing Americas Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta in Rio de Janeiro this weekend.

Alizedah needed a top-five finish to reach his second successive Olympics, having finished eighteenth at the rescheduled Tokyo Games in 2021.

Competing in lane one of the six-man field, he secured his passage to Paris after posting a time of 7min 41.37sec.

The 30-year-old, who came third in the semi-final, became the third rower behind Jim Butterfield and Shelley Pearson to compete at the Olympics in Tokyo.

Alizadeh helped Cambridge University to back-to-back wins in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race in 2018 and 2019, serving as Cambridge president in 2019.

The regatta in Paris will be held at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, which is about 30 kilometres from centre of the capital.