Rowing: Kiwi hopes burning bright

By PETER JESSUP

New Zealand's rowing team looks set for a big day at the Penrith regatta course next weekend, after husband and wife Rob and Sonia Waddell blitzed their heats and the coxless four were comfortable finals qualifiers yesterday.

All crews now row in the semifinals on Thursday. Yesterday's single-sculls heat winners and the top three crews in each heat of the coxless four go straight through.

On yesterday's form, all three crews should take one of the top-two spots on Thursday. Mr and Mrs Waddell both said they had more in reserve at the end, the four were dissatisfied with second and said they had plenty to work on to achieve their best, but all three look likely to progress to finals and Saturday looks likely to be the country's best day, medal-wise.

It was a perfect day on the course. The mirror-smooth surface was broken only by the occasional early-feeding fish, belying pre-Games worries about crosswinds

Sonia Waddell started in the first race of the day with confidence and went stroke for stroke with Australian Gina Douglas over the first 750m. Despite the home crowd, Douglas couldn't stick with it when Waddell picked up the pace and she led over the halfway mark. By the 1250m she had opened up a half boat-length on the Australian.

At the end Waddell was at 35 strokes a minute, looking comfortable and unthreatened, to finish in 7m 40.18s. Heat two winner Rumyana Neykova of Bulgaria went nearly four seconds faster but was pushed hard. Belarussian Yeketarina Karsten won heat three easily in the slowest time of 7m 47.73.

One of the favourites, German Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski, won the last heat in the day's fastest time of 7m 32.80, and those four progress to semifinals while the rest go to repechage tomorrow.

"I was very happy with that," said Waddell. "The times were comparable, although that may not mean much because you only do what you have to do to get through."

Rob Waddell emulated his wife's heat win in a performance that will have intimidated all rivals, streaking away to a five boat-length win in the quick time of 6m54.20s, the crowd clapping the double world champion home over the last 250m.

His main rival, Xeno Mueller of Switzerland, reigning Olympic champion and the only man to have beaten him in the past two years, was unpressed in winning his heat in the second-fastest time of 6m 37.38s. The other semis qualifiers were German Marcel Hacker in the third-fastest time of 6m 58.31s, Canadian Derek Porter winning the last heat in 7m 02.24s.

"I wasn't really after a good time, just a good blow-out," Waddell said. "That was OK but I don't think you've seen the full set of cards on the table yet from anyone. Certainly you haven't seen all of mine."

And he rated his wife as being in the best form of her career.

Team coach Steve Gunn wasn't putting anything on the difference in times given the fact that none of the heat winners, men's or women's, was pushed hard for top spot.

Of Rob Waddell, he said: "He knew what he'd done in training and it gives you confidence knowing it's all been done right."



Now staying in a Penrith house because the athletes' village is a two-hour drive away, the rowers will continue working twice a day. Gunn's approach is to make everything "just another day at the office, not working too hard, staying relaxed."

In the four, defending champions Britain beat Australia and Slovakia, their time of 6m 01.58s keeping Steven Redgrave in the frame to add to his four golds at four Olympics.



Italy were easy winners of the second heat in 6m 04.59s, with the United States and Norway also progressing.

The French led the third heat all the way and won in 6m, at the end holding a boat-length over New Zealand and Germany, who were content with the guaranteed semifinal place a top-three finish gave them.

Dave Schaper said the four were less than pleased, as they wanted a strong first-up performance and yesterday's effort was not.

Asked if they had tried to catch and pass the French he replied, "Of course, we want to win every race. We just didn't have the movement the way we've trained.

"We've just got to go back and review and make sure we get everything right for Thursday."