Kiwi rowers set impressive benchmarks at World Champs

Julia Edward and Sophie MacKenzie celebrate after winning gold. Photo / Getty

It's hard to garner the kudos you deserve when racing before and after Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, arguably rowing's finest men's pair, at the world championships in Aiguebelette, France.

They won their annual gold but New Zealand's lightweight double scull gold medallists Julia Edward and Sophie MacKenzie, alongside coxless pair silver medallists Kerri Gowler and Grace Prendergast, set impressive Olympic benchmarks last night.

Edward and MacKenzie defended their title after combining together at short notice last year. They took the lead in the third 500m of this year's final and won by 1.21s from Britain's Katherine Copeland and Charlotte Taylor. Copeland and Taylor had beaten them at June's World Cup in Varese.

Edward spoke about their belief: "Going through halfway we were all pretty level but I was very confident in our last 500m. We talked about it before the race and Sophie really ramped us up and got us going... we took length after length so we're rapt."

Gowler and Prendergast finished 3.76s behind British Olympic champions Heather Stanning and Helen Glover but their sprinting qualities in the final 500m when they pushed through the United States, must have left the Brits on alert in the shadow of the Rio Games. Gowler and Prendergast will make the rare switch to compete in the eights final tonight.

"It's been a really awesome season," Prendergast said. "Stepping up to elite racing has been a big challenge but I think we've done it pretty well. Once we recover we'll be ready to go out and give our best in the eight."

In essence the pair have extended an extraordinary legacy in the class for Rowing New Zealand.

Since Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh combined ahead of the 2004 Olympics, New Zealand have never missed the final at a world championships or Olympics. Since 2009 a Kiwi crew has always medalled, including Scown and Haigh's bronze at the London Games.

They have gone through five transitions since - Scown and Haigh, to Scown and Emma-Jane Feathery, to Scown and Haigh, to Scown and Kayla Pratt, to Scown and Louise Trappitt, to Gowler and Prendergast - but the consistency remains.

The lightweight double are forging a similar path. The mixed-and-matched trio of Edward, Louise Ayling and Lucy Strack had made the final at every world championships since 2010 but MacKenzie proved a catalyst in taking them to the podium. The only other New Zealand world championships medal in the class came when Philippa Baker-Hogan and Linda de Jong took silver in 1989.

Adding further to their Rio prospects is the fact Edward, with Ayling in 2012, knows the pain of missing an Olympic final. Complacency will also be eradicated by the performance of 19-year-old Zoe McBride in her first elite year. She won gold in the non-Olympic lightweight single sculls.

Tonight sees six New Zealand crews competing for medals including the women's and men's double sculls, the men's lightweight four, the men's single, and the men's and women's eights.

Racing starts with the women's double at 11:15pm.