Rowing: Twins rule out complacency

Having beaten their main rivals, New Zealand rowing's Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell are not about to allow complacency ruin their Olympic Games medal hopes.

They underlined their overwhelming favouritism for Olympic gold when winning the women's double sculls at a World Cup regatta in Switzerland yesterday.

It was their second World Cup victory in a month and left them the envy of their rivals as crews turn their attention to the Olympic Games in Athens in August.

New Zealand's two-time world champions won the final in Lucerne by completing the 2000m journey in a time of 6m 59.77s.

That was comfortably ahead of the second-placed German crew of Olympic legend Kathrin Boron and Kirstin El Qalqili, who recorded 7m 02.65s. Third place went to Germany No 2, comprising Marita Scholz and Christiane Huth, who were clocked at 7m 06.29s.

Georgina Evers-Swindell said from Lucerne she and her twin sister were excited as the Olympics approached but they were not getting carried away with their continued dominance in the double sculls.

"We have had a good couple of regattas in Europe but we never get complacent.

"We know the girls we race are tough and they have been around.

"They're older than us and have been to the Olympics before.

"They have a lot more experience and we know they will come back hard in Athens.

"We know it will not be at all easy. Both of us understand that.

"The results have been satisfying and it is good to go into our last phase of training with that behind us."

The twins had spent time last week practising their starts against 2002 men's world champion singles sculler Marcel Hacker, of Germany.

"It was quite ironic really considering our biggest rivals here were the German girls," Georgina said of training sessions arranged by the twins' coach Richard Tonks.

She said the sessions were beneficial.

The Evers-Swindells showed excellent acceleration in the final to be 2s up after the opening 500m, a lead they never relinquished.

Georgina was uncertain whether the sisters would compete again before the Olympics.

There is a regatta being held in Amsterdam, Holland, in a fortnight that some of New Zealand's Olympic crews would compete in but she did not know whether she and her sister would compete.

- NZPA