Bellingham’s Jonas Ecker and Aaron Small of Seattle are one race away from competing for an Olympic medal in the Men’s Kayak Double 500-meter event at the 2024 Paris Games.
Ecker, a 2021 Sehome High graduate, and Small, a 2024 University of Washington grad, will compete in Friday’s semifinals — and hopefully, finals — after making it through two rounds of heats Tuesday morning at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in their Olympic debuts.
If Ecker and Small finish as one of the top four boats of eight in their semifinal, set for 2:10 a.m. PST on Friday, they will make it to the Final A, the medal round, scheduled for 4:20 a.m. PST the same day.
“It’s the Olympics. Everyone’s just crazy fast,” Ecker said by phone from Paris Tuesday morning. “I would not be surprised if everyone’s within a second in that semifinal … We’re definitely not the favorites, but I don’t think you count anyone out at this level of racing.”
Eight boats will compete for gold, silver and bronze in the Final A. Those who do not make that will compete in the Final B.
Winning a medal would be a long shot — Ecker, 21, said he and Small, 23, are the youngest team in the competition — but anything can happen. Plus, little is expected of them, which is the best of both worlds.
They’ll get an idea where they stand in the semifinals. They will race in Lane 1. In Lane 6 is the Hungary team of Balint Kopasz and Adam Varga, the defending Men’s Kayak Single 1,000-meter race gold and silver medalists from the Tokyo Games’ 1,000-meter race. Kopasz is the reigning world-recordholder at the Kayak Single distance.
After finishing fifth in their first heat early Tuesday, Ecker and Small posted the third-fastest time in their quarterfinal, 1 minute, 28.93 seconds, to qualify for the semifinal as one of the top four boats. The duo of Jakub Spicar and Daniel Havel of the Czech Republic, posting the quarterfinal round’s top time of 1:28.36, won that heat, trailed by Serbia’s Marko Novakovic and Marko Dragosavljevic’s time of 1:28.57. Serbia’s Andjelo Dzombeta and Vladimir Torubarov were the final team to advance behind Ecker and Small, finishing fourth, posting a time of 1:29.46.
While Ecker said his and Small’s goal was to get to the Games and everything else is “kind of a cherry on top,” they know that they are racing faster than they ever have. They were “super-excited” to break 1:29 in the quarterfinals, a personal best. “We’re just adding cherries to the tower,” he said.
If they make the medal round on Friday is up in the air.
“You could run the race four times and have four different finish orders,” he said. “It’s just who has a slightly better day, or who just wants it that little bit more,” he said.
In Tuesday’s other quarterfinal, Spain’s Adrian del Rio and Marcus Cooper advanced with the top time of 1:29.12, followed by Hamish Lovemore and Andrew James Birkett of the Republic of South Africa in a time of 1:29.75. Canada’s Pierre-Luc Poulin and Simon McTavish were third, posting a time of 1:30.01. New Zealand’s Hamish Legarth and Kurtis Imrie were the final team to advance in a time of 1:30.29.
Eight teams made it directly into the semifinals by finishing in top two in the heats, skipping the quarterfinal. They are: Jacob Schopt and Max Lemke of Germany, who posted the day’s fastest time in 1:28.03; Portugal’s Joao Ribeiro and Messias Baptista; Max Rendschmidt and Tom Liebscher-Lucz of Germany; Bence Nadas and Sandor Totka of Hungary; Poland’s Jakub Stepun and Przemyslaw Korsak; Spain’s Carlos Arevalo and Rodrigo Germade; Australia’s Jean van der Westhuyzen and Tom Green; Hungary’s Kopasz and Varga, who posted a time of 1:29.37.
Two boats in each quarterfinal did not advance to the semifinal.
Both Ecker, a five-time Ski-to-Sea competitor, and Small are also competing in the Men’s Kayak Single 1,000-meter event, an individual race that begins with heats starting at 1:40 a.m. PST on Wednesday that follows a similar format. Semifinals are set for 2:10 a.m. PST on Saturday, Aug. 10, followed by the medal race at 4:10 a.m. the same day.
Ecker’s stronger event is the Kayak Single. Just last month, he won the Under-23 world championship at that distance.
Ecker, 21, is a marine biology major at UW and the son of Bellingham’s E’lana and Brian Ecker, who is also his coach. Both Ecker’s parents are watching in person, and seven friends from his Sehome days have flown in or are en route to cheer him on.
Ecker said he did not have any jitters in his Olympic debut Tuesday.
“It’s a lifelong dream to even qualify for the Olympics, and so now that we’re here, there’s not really any expectations to medal or to perform,” he said. “(We) obviously want to do our best.”
Meri-Jo Borzilleri is a freelance journalist and former 20-year sports reporter.
