Rio organisers facing up to rowing doomsday after more cancellations

— -- RIO DE JANEIRO -- Only Armageddon will prevent medals from being handed out in the Olympic rowing regatta, according to British rowing chief Sir David Tanner, after another day of racing was postponed on Wednesday.

Wednesday's schedule was called off early because of treacherous conditions around the start line, with the forecast painting a dim picture for the rest of the day. This is now the second time since the start of the Games that a day has been washed out, after the postponement of Sunday's programme for strong winds and a fault with the buoy system.

The schedule is now backed up, but Matt Smith, executive director of world rowing's governing body FISA, is adamant teams will complete every race despite further poor conditions expected for Thursday.

Earlier in the week BBC commentator Sir Steve Redgrave outlined the 'doomsday' scenario of no medals being handed out if these conditions persisted, but Tanner is confident every race will take place. He did, however, outline various contingency plans to get the schedule through.

"The last part of the course is entirely rowable," Tanner said, talking close to the commentary booths which overlook the finishing line. "There are two scenarios: you are allowed to reduce the distance, and we did it in the world juniors in Athens in 2003. The absolute worst case scenario is that you have a lane that you can use in which you do a time trial.

"As you can see crews are training here. The challenge is in the bit you can't see at the start, where it is rough with the cross chop.

"So we would have to have thunder, lightning and Armageddon itself if we weren't going to do it [finish the schedule] and we will find a way."

Tanner added that the athletes are "completely unfazed" by the disruption but did say the weather on Thursday "doesn't look great".

FISA is waiting anxiously ahead of Thursday but remains confident every race will take place. But if Thursday's schedule is disrupted then FIS will start looking into various contingency plans which include going into Sunday, shortening the course, introducing single-lane time trials to decide medals or cancelling some of the non-medal finals.

The plans for Thursday's rowing will see FISA make an early call on whether to postpone rowing until the afternoon -- something they originally did on Wednesday before then deciding to call off the whole programme -- with the wind direction and speed expected to be similar to Sunday's conditions.

Despite the difficulties, Smith says it is nothing compared to one day at London 2012 when rowers spoke of unfair conditions from one lane to another on the course at Eton Dorney.

"It's much more stressful when we have unfair wind and having to take decisions much more stressful than it is now," Smith said. "The Olympic regatta is much smaller. We have been in much more stressful situations, lanes become unfair, playing God with the athletes.

"Wednesday in London was one of the most difficult days we've ever had, the wind changing direction in the morning such that we couldn't settle on a pattern that was consistent."

Smith also spoke of his surprise at the attendances at the rowing, saying "lots of tickets have been sold, but people are not showing up". He's estimating the no-shows at 20-25 percent of tickets sold.