LONDON - Clearville's Natalie Dell will be rowing for an Olympic gold medal Wednesday morning.
The United States women's quadruple sculls team, of which Dell is a member, advanced to Wednesday's 5:20 a.m. final with a second-place finish on Monday at Eton Dorney.
The women's quad crew of Adrienne Martelli, Megan Kalmoe, Kara Kohler and Dell, the Everett Area High School graduate, finished second in their repechage to Australia, but the first four boats from the six-boat race earned a place in the final Wednesday. The U.S. team will compete against Australia, Great Britain, China, Germany and Ukraine.
"I feel pretty honored to be in the finals in the Olympics," Dell told US Rowing. "Obviously, we would have liked to have had a better finish, but we've got one more race to figure it out and fortunately that's the one that matters.
"Everybody comes here to win. But it is an honor to make the final and that's the first goal and that was the goal for today and we're very proud of that. I think there is more speed over the entire piece we can get and we'll make that our business to do over the next two days."
The U.S. team finished Monday's race in 6 minutes, 19.49 seconds, which was about four seconds slower than their time in the heats. Australia finished in 6:18.80 with Britain third (6:21.65) and China fourth (6:21.98).
