Golden run for NZ rowers at World Cup
New Zealand’s rowers have made a spectacular start to their first World Cup regatta of the year.
Competing in their first international event of the 2017 season, the Kiwis wrapped up the World Rowing Cup II in Poznan, Poland with six medals – five gold and one silver – as well as two new world best times.
New Zealand’s gold medal haul came from the men’s single sculls, the women’s pair, the men’s and women’s double sculls and the women’s eight, while the men’s eight took home silver.
Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler scored not only the first medal of the day in the women’s pair but also a new world best time of 6min 49.08sec.
‘‘It was actually a really enjoyable race. We just wanted to push ourselves and see what we could do, not knowing how fast everyone else would be.’’ said Prendergast.
‘‘We wanted to control it, but it felt like we had a lot of fun.’’
Robbie Manson came into the men’s single sculls A final as the fastest qualifier and finished it with a new world best time.
Competing in the single sculls event at world cup level for the first time, Manson was a newcomer in a final stacked with the likes of world champion and Olympic silver medallist Damir Martin, Olympic champion Nico Stahlberg, under-23 world champion Tim Ole Naske and Olympic finalist Angel Fournier Rodriguez.
However, Manson powered away to cross the line and collect gold with a new world best time of 6min 30.74sec, an incredible three seconds faster than the previous record set by Mahe Drysdale.
‘‘I was never going out there to race the other guys, I was just going out to put out the best performance I could and I saw the numbers coming in the second half so I just put my foot down.’’ Manson said.
Olivia Loe
Donoghue won and the Brooke women’s double sculls. The New Zealanders crossed the line in 6min 39.13sec, just two seconds shy of the world best time.
In the men’s double sculls Olympians John Storey and Chris Harris executed a spectacular race to earn the gold medal.
The women’s eight proved themselves once again to win gold, meanwhile, the men’s eight came across the line in second place five seconds behind a flying German crew.