Perfect pairs: Kiwi duos

It was double gold for two New Zealand duos at the world rowing championships in Austria at the weekend.

Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler won the women’s pair in a thrilling encounter before Zoe McBride and Jackie Kiddle streeted the field in the lightweight women’s double sculls.

There was also a silver medal on the penultimate day of the regatta in Linz-Ottensheim – which doubles as the major qualifying regatta for boats for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics – for New Zealand’s Tom Murray and Michael Brake in the men’s pair.

McBride and Kiddle were a disappointing sixth at last year’s world championships after being pipped for gold in 2017 but were always in command this time. They took the lead in the second 500 metres of the 2000m race and their winning time of seven minutes 15.32 seconds was 4.19sec ahead of silver medallists The Netherlands, with Great Britain taking bronze.

The duo had already qualified the boat for the Olympics and are now the crew to catch at Tokyo.

‘‘This is surreal,’’ Kiddle said. ‘‘We’ve been waiting a long time for this, and last year was a bit of a disappointment. I am stoked.’’

Prendergast and Gowler had to use every last reserve of energy to win gold – their second world title after triumphing in 2017 and being silver medallists last year.

Australia’s Jessica Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre led for most of the way before New Zealand’s pressure finally told in the last 150m, with the tired transTasman rivals losing their steering under the strain.

New Zealand’s winning time of 7min 21.35secs was 2.27sec clear of Australia, with Canada another 2.9sec back, and they’ll also head into Olympic year as the gold medal favourites.

‘‘We worked really hard for this,’’ Prendergast said.

‘‘That was the closest race I’ve ever been in, which made it even more special. I think it came down to sticking to our race plan and trusting ourselves.’’

Murray and Brake had to bow to the superstar Croatian duo of Martin and Valent Sinkovic despite a powerful row that pushed them to silver. The pair were fifth in the final last year while it was the second world championship medal for Murray, who claimed bronze with James Hunter in 2017 after they took over the seats in the boat from unbeaten dual Olympic gold medallists Eric Murray and Hamish Bond.

The Sinkovic brothers, who switched to the pair after winning gold in the double sculls at the 2016 Rio Olympics, were 3.19sec ahead of the Kiwis, who were a long way clear of the third-placed Australians.

‘‘That wasn’t really our game plan,’’ Murray said.

‘‘Croatia raced their best. We did what we came here to do today, but it wasn’t enough.’’

Valent Sinkovic had praise for the Kiwis in reply.

‘‘It was a hard and long race for us but we had a plan to go out hard at the start. New Zealand were really strong in the middle 1000 metres, so in the last 500 metres, we had to go really hard ourselves.

There was heartbreak for the Kiwi men’s quad of Jordan Parry, Cameron Crampton, Lewis Hollows and Nathan Flannery in their B final. Needing to finish first or second to qualify the quad