KEY POINTS:
A superb effort from Storm Uru and Peter Taylor in the men's lightweight double sculls in Poland has qualified another boat for New Zealand at the Beijing Olympics.
Uru and Taylor breezed in with a dominant display in their A final today (NZT) at the "last chance" regatta in Poznan, Poland.
With three places at Beijing up for grabs in the final, the pair left nothing to chance and took a decisive early lead - two seconds at the first 500 metre mark.
They maintained this through the middle 1000 metres, then upped their tempo for the final 500 metres, coming home a relatively comfortable 2-1/2 seconds ahead of crews from Portugal and Canada, who also qualified for Beijing.
The double will have to wait to be officially confirmed as an entry by the New Zealand Olympic Committee, but the success in Poznan now means the rowing team will almost certainly field eight boats in Beijing in August.
Celebrations were slightly diluted by the failure of both the lightweight women's double scull of Candice Hammond and Louise Ayling and the women's eight to qualify.
The double couldn't get beyond the repechage, and in the straight final of the eights, New Zealand finished fifth. This field was of an incredibly high standard and even the highly fancied Chinese failed to make the two-boat cut, rowed out by Canada and the Netherlands.
- NZPA
