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Rio de Janeiro • In need a top-two finish to keep her Olympic medal hopes above water, Devery Karz suddenly ran into some chop. The winds swirling on top of the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon began as a tailwind Tuesday morning, but when the women's lightweight double sculls repechage boats launched, the winds immediately calmed.

However, it didn't last long. A gusting headwind soon hit the six teams, testing the 12 rowers competing for two spots in Wednesday's A/B semifinal. A loss in the repechage heat — a race that features rowers who initially didn't qualify for the semifinal rounds in their first attempt — ended medal aspirations effectively.

So in the first quarter of the race, Karz, the 28-year-old rower from Park City very nearly "caught a crab." That's rowing slang for the blade of an oar getting caught up in the water, causing a serious lapse in timing and putting the overall race in jeopardy. The oar did go parallel with the boat, but before it could slow down Karz and partner Kate Bertko, the Park City product quickly recovered before the blade fell into the water.

"Sometimes it gets a little bouncy," she said. "Everybody makes a technical mistake, so we just moved through it like nothing happened. We didn't focus on that stroke, but we focused on the next stroke and stayed calm and kept moving."

It was a potentially medal-saving move. Karz and Bertko quickly recovered from potential catastrophe and went to win the first lightweight women's double sculls repechage to advance to the A/B semis Wednesday at 6 a.m. MDT.

The victory (7:58.90) on the 2,000-meter Olympic course guarantees the American crew a top-12 finish in Rio and puts them back in the chase after finishing third in their Olympic debut Monday.

"Devery did a great job with the little mishap," said coach John Parker. "No big deal."

The slow start was quickly overcome. The U.S. zipped into second place two minutes into the race while trailing Japan.

At the four-minute mark, Karz and Bertko made their move. By four minutes and 30 seconds, they passed the Japanese team, and didn't relent. At the six-minute checkpoint, Karz and Bertko maintained their lead. The Japanese duo (8:00.50) made a late charge, but the Americans held them off.

"We're a crew, so we do everything together," Bertko said. "We communicate, we respond, we have a strategy for dealing with this adventure, and just snaps right in. Devery comes from, I think, a pretty good adventure sport background — mountain biking and skiing — so she knows how to correct when the going gets tough."

Bertko knows the scouting report. Karz, a one-time Park City Ski Team athlete and former competitive mountain-biker, responded to an untimely gaffe.

Karz and Bertko are scheduled to compete in the second of the two six-team semifinals Wednesday morning where they'll face teams from Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Canada and Ireland. Parker said the talent is spread out fairly evenly among the two semifinal heats, which he thinks will work in their favor.

"We got the job done," he said. "They still haven't really nailed their best piece yet, so we're hoping for that [Wednesday]."

The Park City High graduate and Oregon State University product also believes the best is yet to come. The goal, she said, is to keep progressing. If storming back after evading what could have been a race-ending mistake wasn't impressive enough, the Americans won the race that otherwise would have eliminated her team from Olympic medal contention.

Certainly seems like a step in the right direction.

"It's a split-second thing," Karz said of her recovery. "If you think about it too much, I think then the stroke gets hard."

After Karz and Bertko had their Olympic debut pushed back a day due to inclement weather and high winds on Sunday, another storm could affect their semifinal races.

Matt Smith, executive director of the governing body of world rowing (FISA), announced Tuesday night that race schedules for Wednesday and Thursday may be altered Wednesday morning due to a 48-hour weather system rolling into the region.

According to U.S. rowing, Smith said FISA officials will make a decision Wednesday morning to proceed as scheduled to move racing times to later in the day or event postpone. Smith said FISA is configuring contingency plans if the races are pushed back both days.

"We are comfortable, given for the moment that Friday and Saturday look good, that there will be no dramas, and we can catch up with the racing Friday and Saturday," he said.

Twitter: @chriskamrani —

Olympic rowing

Lightweight women's double sculls repechage

1. USA, Karz/Bertko, 7:58.90

2. JPN, 8:00.50

3. GBR, 8:05.70

4. Chile, 8:11.97

5. Brazil, 8:15.53

6. China, 8;20.96

Lightweight women's double sculls A/B semifinal, heat 2 Wednesday

1. Germany

2. Denmark

3. Netherlands

4. Canada

5. Ireland

6. USA, Karz/Bertko