Rowing: Champion twins ready for a break

By JULIE ASH

A break from rowing - and each other - is what New Zealand's world champions Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell have planned for the next few weeks.

The double sculls champions arrived home from Europe yesterday, nine days after blitzing their main rivals Germany and Russia and setting themselves up as gold medal favourites for next year's Olympic Games.

"Our coach Richard [Tonks] has told us he doesn't want to see us for a while," Caroline said.

"So we are going to have a break from the boat and probably each other."

The twins' winning time of 6m 45.8s in Milan was 1.8s faster than the fancied German crew of Britta Oppelt and eight-time world champion and three-time Olympian Kathrin Boron.

Russia's Larisa Merk and Irina Fedotova finished a further 1.9s back.

Though the gold medal is the Evers-Swindells' second - they won the event last year - the twins regard this year's success as sweeter because they beat Boron who sat out last year's event after the birth of her child.

"To have Kathrin Boron back, who has been winning for the past 10 years, and to race her at these world championships and to beat her is just a wicked feeling," Caroline said. "It is very satisfying."

Mike Hartley, the New Zealand manager since 1997, said the twins' performance was outstanding. "I'd put them right up there with [Sydney Olympic gold medallist] Rob Waddell.

"They just have that inner core and commitment. They have their mind on the job, they are focused and they don't let the small stuff get in the way."

After the world championships the twins travelled to Athens for a "bit of sightseeing" and to check out the Olympic course.

"There was a nice tailwind, we would have quite liked to have gone for a bit of a row," Caroline said.

And though they are aware they will carry the hopes of the country on their shoulders when they line up on that course in less than a year, the 24-year-olds are not fazed.

"We put a lot of pressure on ourselves anyway," Georgina said.

"It is great to know you have got the support of people at home, but we just want to go out there, have a good race and stick to our game plan. But we have ... a lot of kilometres to clock up at Karapiro before then."