Finalists locked in at Maadi

Ashburton rower Veronica Wall seems set for a profitable set of finals at the Maadi Cup today and tomorrow at Lake Karapiro.

Defending champion Wall is more than nine seconds ahead of her nearest rival, Ruby Leverington from Samuel Marsden Collegiate School, who seems set to race St Peter’s, Cambridge’s Sydney Johnson for second and third.

Wall will race in four finals over the next two days, as she seeks a repeat of last year’s regatta at Lake Ruataniwha in Twizel, where she took home four golds.

Two of them are on Friday – the under-17 single sculls and under-18 double sculls, where she rows alongside Grace Wilson and qualified fastest on Thursday – while the other two are on Saturday – the under-18 single sculls and the under-18 coxed quad, where her Ashburton College crew that includes Wilson, Mollie Gibson, Olivia Gibson and cox Emma Jansen have also qualified fastest.

Wall and the crews she is a member of have won all of their preliminary races in Cambridge this week, and their closest test is set to come in the coxed quad, where North Island champions Tauranga Girls’ College have stayed near, but were still more than four seconds back in Thursday’s semifinal.

A tense battle is taking place on the water at Lake Karapiro this week in the under-18 boys’ single sculls.. Whakatane High School’s Elliot Jenkins laid down a marker ahead of Saturday’s final, qualifying fastest, four seconds ahead of Bradley Leydon from John McGlashan College, who was less than a second in front of Xavier Wright, the lone student from Invercargill’s Verdon College.

Leydon, the South Island champion, had been faster than Jenkins, the North Island champion, earlier in the week, and whether he can come back looms as the big question.

The other big race to have semifinals on Thursday was the under-18 boys’ double sculls, where Elliot Jenkins and his twin Finn from Whakatane are the favourites, and won their heat comfortably.

Meanwhile the last spots in the under-18 boys’ and girls’ eights finals were confirmed, with Auckland Grammar School and Auckland’s Sacred Heart College joining the former, and Christchurch’s Rangi Ruru Girls’ School and Hamilton’s St Paul’s Collegiate joining the latter.