Rowing champs crucial to NZ Games hopes

Mahe Drysdale. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand's readiness for the Olympic qualifying regatta at the end of next month will get a searching examination when the Lucerne World Cup starts tonight.

The world championships at Bled, Slovenia double as the regatta at which countries qualify boats for the London Olympics next year, if not necessarily the rowers in those boats.

New Zealand will field crews in 14 of the 21 events in what is shaping as a bumper regatta on the Rotsee course in Switzerland, which is regarded as the premier event in Europe each year. The class is distinctly stronger than it was for the earlier World Cup meetings, in Munich and Hamburg.

At Hamburg last month, New Zealand crews bagged five gold medals, three silver and a bronze from nine starts, but it was a below full strength regatta with European crews withdrawing because of concerns over the E. coli bacteria outbreak.

The most heavily populated event will be four-time world champion Mahe Drysdale's single scull which has drawn 30 entries and shapes as a top-class contest.

The men's lightweight double has 29. New Zealand's Storm Uru and Peter Taylor will not have their anticipated first duel with British hotshots and world champions Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase as Purchase is absent.

There are 28 entries in the women's double scull, where New Zealand's Fiona Paterson and Anna Reymer have their first start of the year.

Others with more than 20 starters include the men's double and coxless pair, featuring world champions Nathan Cohen and Joseph Sullivan, and Eric Murray and Hamish Bond respectively (27 entries each); Emma Twigg's women's single (25); the lightweight double of Louise Ayling and Lucy Strack, and the non-Olympic lightweight single of Duncan Grant (24) and the men's coxless four (22). The coxless fours is an event New Zealand management are determined to chase an Olympic medal in next year.

The quartet of Carl Meyer, James Dallinger, Chris Harris and Ben Hammond won silver at the Hamburg regatta behind a strong German crew.

There is also plenty of interest in the performance of Ayling, a world champs silver medallist in the lightweight single at Lake Karapiro last November, and Strack.

They will have an Olympic trip on the horizon if they perform strongly this weekend and in Bled.

The men's eight will be out to improve on their encouraging showing at the worlds, while New Zealand are also fielding world champions Rebecca Scown and Juliette Haigh in the coxless pair, two quads and a lightweight men's coxless pair.

Most finals are Sunday night (NZT).