Bond and Murray’s golden run rolls on

PRETTY novices.

New Zealand crews grabbed two gold medals when they produced two world’s best times at the world rowing champs in Amsterdam yesterday.

The NZ men’s coxed pair of Hamish Bond, Eric Murray and coxswain Caleb Shepherd won gold in their first crack at the event, while the sparkling new women’s four combination of Kerri Gowler, Grace Prendergast, Kelsey Bevan and Kayla Pratt stormed to a stunning triumph in their final on a windy Bosbaan course.

The Kiwi boats were propelled by fierce tail winds that helped produce six world’s fastest times on the first of three days of A finals at the regatta.

Bond and Murray decided to add the non-Olympic coxed pair event to their world championship programme this year to keep them sharp and add further motivation on their path towards defending their coxless pair title at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

They made a fine fist of the first half of their quest for a rare double gold when, guided by Shepherd, they won in a time of six minutes 33.26 seconds to destroy the previous fastest time in the event – set 20 years ago – by more than nine seconds.

World rowing governing body Fisa doesn’t recognise ‘‘ world records’’ due to contrasting conditions at venues and regattas.

The women’s four crew was only assembled a month out from Amsterdam, but that didn’t stop them recording a winning mark of 6:14.36; over 10 seconds quicker than the previous best set in 2006.

Murray and Bond were attempting to win their second

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of gold medal of the champs and pull off a rare small-boat double triumph when they defended their world- record six- year unbeaten streak in the men’s pair final overnight NZ time.

Yesterday, the duo and Shepherd pulled past closest rivals Great Britain near the 500 metre mark and drew away to win gold and smash the previous best time set by Croatia in 1994 of 6:42.16. They finished over 10 seconds ahead of the GB crew of Scott Durant, Alan Sinclair and Henry Fieldman.

Bond and Murray now possess two world’s fastest times, after setting the standard for the men’s pair during their gold-medal winning 2012 Olympic regatta at Eton Dorney in London.

‘‘ It was pretty good,’’ said a phlegmatic Bond afterwards. ‘‘Obviously we got the result we were after, and in challenging conditions. Sometimes in those conditions you can try too hard and end up going slower.’’

The strong winds resulted in lane changes prior to finals, so the fastest crews from the heats and semifinals received the preferred lanes. Bond admitted a little concern with the conditions, as tail winds often mean closer fields.

‘‘If you asked me what wind I’d prefer in winning the race – probably not a tail wind,’’ Bond said. ‘‘But it does give you a shot at a record. That wasn’t really our motivation at all. I had my speedo on and I was pretty aware that we were under world record speed for a lot of the race and although at times it didn’t feel super super amazing, I still knew we were going fast and it was just about maintaining that rhythm.

‘‘We didn’t sprint at the end but we held our speed. We probably won’t know what toll we’ve paid until we get into the last 500 tomorrow.’’