Olympic champion Drysdale has record six titles in his sights

Twenty crews will end today as winners at the Henley Royal Regatta, but one of the favourites, New Zealand’s reigning Olympic champion, Mahe Drysdale, has the chance to equal Stuart ‘Sam’ Mackenzie’s record of six regatta titles if he beats Belgian Hannes Obreno in the Diamond single sculls.

Drysdale, who was encouraged into sculling by British coach Bill Barry, who also guided GB sculler Alan Campbell for years, has deliberately chosen to make Henley the focus of his Rio preparations. “It was a last-minute decision, but the reason I came was to get some tough racing, and I’m looking to improve on my start,” he said.

Drysdale’s stature in the sport is such that any competitor, even French international Cédric Berrest, whom he beat on Thursday, is going to dash full-pelt off the start as it is their only chance of beating the tall Kiwi.

Drysdale also wanted rough water practice, since it is likely that Rio’s exposed Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas will suffer from high waves, and Henley’s river course with cruiser traffic setting up wash has been the perfect practice location. “I love the one-on-one nature of the racing [here] too, pretty much every worlds or Olympic final I’ve done has come down to two men battling it out,” added Drysdale.

The Dutch men’s eight, pair and four are also in action, albeit against non-Olympic opposition in today’s finals. Yesterday, Roel Braas and Mitchel Steenman sauntered up the course after the stroke of their German opposition, Clemens Ernsting, suffered an equipment failure that meant he was unable to row full strokes. It was not the only problem on semi-finals day, as a courseside wooden boom plank came loose and caused a 20-minute delay while it was tied back, and geese wandering on to the course at inappropriate moments during racing also set the racing schedule back. British coxed pair Ollie Cook and Callum McBrierty, racing coxless here, ran out of steam against France’s non-Olympic duo, Eduoard Jonville and Benoit Demey, but Nick Middleton and Jack Beaumont launched themselves into the final where they will meet Dani Fridman and Gasper Fistravec. These two are an unlikely Israel/Slovenia partnership, who put their Henley crew together after failing to qualify for the Olympics in the singles.

Britain’s next generation of sweep oarsmen, rowing as Nautilus in the Grand Challenge Cup, pulled off a notable coup as they defeated Italy’s national team eight, taking an early lead and fighting off Italy’s attempt to replicate their quarter-final success by rowing through. They meet season leaders the Dutch eight in the final, while their female counterparts, rowing as Leander and Tees, go up against the US development athletes, Princeton Training Center, after reversing the Henley Women’s Regatta result yesterday.

The controversial crews in the Visitors, University of California Berkeley and Oxford Brookes/Proteus, met in a semi-final fraught with incident. A very early clash and stoppage beside Temple Island resulted in umpire Richard Phelps sending both back to start again, and in the second race both were warned until California Berkeley managed to overhaul Brookes/Proteus.