The "Good Luck Beijing" 2007 Canoe/Kayak Flatwater Open entered its second day on August 24, with semifinals in eight events contested. According to the rules, the top three place finishers qualify for the finals, so besides those who directly qualified for the finals yesterday, 24 more paddlers grasped the last chance to make the finals.

In today's semifinals, European paddlers maintained their momentum with 17 advancing to the finals; while China had only two boats for the finals, one in the women's K-1 500m and the other in the women's K-2 500m, through Zhong Hongyan and Xu Linbei/Song Minyuan, who finished first in their respective semifinal race to enter the finals.

Most of the paddlers are competing to prepare themselves for next year's Olympic Games. In order to get into the finals the semifinal races became rather gruelling among those who are close in strength. In the men's K-1 1000m, C-1 1000m and K-1 500m, for instance, the gaps between the top three paddlers were often less than 0.3sec.

Europe, where canoe/kayak events enjoy great popularity, is well known for its predominance in the sport. This time in Beijing Europeans paddlers once again displayed their overall strength with 17 of them getting into the finals, among who Aliaksandr Zhukouski of Belarus and Ben Fouhy of New Zealand attracted the most attention. Aliaksandr Zhukouski finished first in 4:05:447 in the men's C-1 1000m semifinals and will compete for medals in both the men's C-1 1000m and C-2 1000m; while Ben Fouhy, besides qualifying for the men's K-1 1000m, earned a berth today in the K-2 500m together with teammate Steven Ferguson.

Among the seven boats representing China in the semifinals today, Zhong Hongyan and Xu Linpei/Zhu Minyuan finished first in the women's K-1 500m (1:58:023) and women's K-2 500m (1:49:978) respectively. Plus Yang Wenjun who advanced directly from the men's C-1 500m heats, China will have three boats in the finals.