Tearful Sanita Puspure heartbroken as Rio Olympics dream ends

There was a heartbreaking end to Sanita Puspure’s Olympic dream yesterday with the 34-year-old missing out on a place in the single sculls semi-finals by 0.65 of a second.

The 34-year-old finished fourth with the top three qualifying — her time of 7:28.68 would have been good enough to progress in the three other heats.

The odds were stacked against Puspure from the outset, as the field contained the veteran Belarusian Ekaterina Karsten (six-time world champion and twice Olympic gold medallist), Australia’s Kim Brennan (2013 and 2015 world champion), and Jingli Duan of China (bronze at the last two world championships).