The week before the Olympics BBC showed an historic drama Bert & Dickie about the pairs sculls in 1938.
Even in that the British pair are shown deliberately under-performing in the heats, with this intention of getting to the next round by way of the repechage, thus delaying meeting major rivals until the finals.
Unfortunately other good pairs had the same idea, making the repechage a much harder way to the finals.

Plus ça change (plus c'est la même chose).

Cheers
Nigel