First blood to Manson as summer season begins
Robbie Manson has fired the first salvo in what promises to be a fascinating battle on Lake Karapiro this summer.
Manson won gold in convincing fashion in the men’s single and double sculls finals at the Christmas Regatta on Sunday, beating Mahe Drysdale in the process in the single scull.
That duo could fight out the men’s single scull berth in the New Zealand team for next year’s Tokyo Olympics.
Manson has been New Zealand’s representative in the single since Drysdale won his second Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, but has failed to win a medal at the world championships.
After missing out on the A final in Austria in September, Manson said he would reassess his plans for Tokyo.
‘‘I’m not ruling anything out –
I don’t want to go to the Olympics and make up numbers, I want to have the best chance of winning a medal that I can. I’m open to different options,’’ Manson said.
Drysdale was part of the New Zealand eight in Linz-Ottensheim that narrowly missed out on automatic qualification for the 2020 Olympics when sixth in their final, but Rowing NZ said the boat was in consideration to attend the ‘last chance’ qualification regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland, in May.
However, Drysdale indicated he wanted to spend summer back in the single scull and seek selection to pursue a third consecutive gold in the class in Tokyo.
On Sunday, Manson won the premier men’s single scull final in 7min 29.11sec – almost 7sec ahead of Chris Harris, with Drysdale third in 7:36.84.
The win will be tempered for Rowing NZ’s selection panel by knowing Manson has been the form single sculler at home over summer for the past three seasons, but that has failed to translate that into results at world championships.
Manson and Harris teamed up in the double scull to win gold in
6:49.94, almost 4sec ahead of Jordan Parry and John Storey.
Harris and Storey have been New Zealand’s men’s double sculls combination for the past three years but struggled to an eighth place finish at this year’s world champs after winning gold in 2017 and bronze last year.
Reigning world champs Kerri Gowler and Grace Prendergast won the women’s pair final in
7:06.40 and teamed up with Kelsey Bevan and Phoebe Spoors to take gold in the four in 7:08.57.
With Emma Twigg not competing, Brooke Donoghue convincingly won the women’s single scull final ahead of Olivia Loe, with that duo combining to win the double sculls.