Two wins for Kiwis in Poland

by Rowing NZ on 17 Jun 2006 The New Zealand elite rowing team ‘blew out the cobwebs’ and will now move to the Czech Republic for two weeks of intensive training following their first taste of International competition for 2006 at the 2nd World Cup Regatta in Poland.

Mahe Drysdale demonstrated that he has stepped up a notch after his World Championship win in Japan last year to win the men’s single scull final over last month’s first Rowing World Cup (Munich) winner, Alan Campbell from Great Britain. Drysdale was three lengths down on Campbell at the 1000 metre mark, but pushed strongly over the 3rd 500 to take the lead an win by a comfortable length over his UK training partner, Campbell with former World Champion, Marcel Hacker of Germany finishing 3rd.


In the men’s pair, George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle were well off the pace right from the start and never recovered to finish a disappointing 5th behind Olympic Champion Drew Ginn of Australia and new partner Duncan Free.


Reigning World and Olympic Champions Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell continued to dominate the women’s double. The Olympic and three times world Champions dominated from start to finish over two Australian combinations who had to row immediately back to the start to compete in the woman’s quadruples sculls.

The NZ men’s four acquitted themselves with credit to finish behind 3rd behind the current Wold Champions, Great Britain and Slovenia in a very fast race. Eric Murray, Selwyn Cleland, Carl Meyer and Hamish Bond will have gained a tremendous amount of confidence from this outing and will now head to the 3rd World Cup in Lucerne buoyed by their success.


The World Champion women’s pair of Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh finished 2nd in their B final while the New Zealand’s new women’s eight also finished 2nd in their B final and will have gained much from their first taste of international competition at level.

For results and Melissa Bray's full report go to www.worldrowing.com