There were two gold medals and a bronze on another great day for New Zealand with Mahé Drysdale's fourth title winning row shattering the world's best time.
 |
| Mahé Drysdale (Photo: Rowing New Zealand) |
The women's pair of Rebecca Scown and Emma Feathery ended a successful season with a bronze medal - a fantastic result in a debut year together but they could be forgiven for expecting more after a dominant run in international regattas. The girls rowed well enough - always in the hunt in third and less than a half boat length down most of the way on winners the United States and early pacesetters the Romanians. Their sprint to the line was good too, getting them right up at the sharp end. Unfortunately the Americans and Romanians had a tiny bit more on the day and the girls had to be satisfied with bronze.
There was no denying Eric Murray and Hamish Bond who took the gold medal and remained unbeaten all season on their way to their first world title together. The pair sprinted away in the first half and established a massive lead which left the field behind. British pair Andrew Triggs Hodge and Peter Reid then put in their best attack of the year and clawed back to a boat length deficit. At 500 metres to go though, the aggressive strategy still left the boys with enough to move away once more and they went through the line in 6 minutes 15 seconds, one of the quicker times in the event's history.
 |
| Eric Murray and Hamish Bond (Photo: Rowing New Zealand) |
Nathan Cohen and Matthew Trott were next up for the Kiwi team and like Lucerne, they were left out of the medals despite being within a length of gold. The German double of Krueger and Knittel took the spoils after a great race with the French, the Slovenians and the New Zealanders. Those four crews had broken away by half way but it was Trott and Cohen doing the chasing a length down in fourth. They fought back well and into the last 500 metres sprinted into medal contention, but couldn't quite make it with the battle for medals ahead of them just too tight to break into.
Emma Twigg finished fourth - a best in a world final - with a surprise race in one of the best women's single sculls finals for years. It was Kath Grainger of Great Britain who took the race on and made Ekaterina Karsten do the work chasing her down. Twigg traded punches with Karsten through the middle and was never out of touch. She was only a couple of tenths away from beating Mirka Knapkova at the end with Grainger's surprise silver behind Karsten the real surprise of the race and the factor that denied Emma a medal.
It was British sculler Alan Campbell - on a day of in form British - who took the lead in the men's single in a fast tailwind and it was Mahe Drysdale that chased him, with only Ondrej Synek anywhere near challenging the pair as they moved away in the second half of the race. Drysdale's third quarter push got him ahead of Campbell and seemingly clear, but rough water in the closing stages hampered Drysdale more than Campbell and the Brit came back to under a length at the finish. The title though, was Mahé's and was number four.
Adaptive sculler Robin Tinga was first up on the day and finished in fifth place - a great performance in his first world final. He held third through the first half, but missed out in a very close battle for bronze.
Mahe Drysdale - Gold
Eric Murray and Hamish Bond - Gold
Rebecca Scown and Emma Feathery - Bronze
Emma Twigg - Fourth
Nathan Cohen and Matthew Trott - fourth
Robin Tinga - fifth
