Rowing: Evers-Swindells second best

Juliette Haigh

The Evers-Swindell twins were finally second-best yesterday.

But it was in the women's coxless four rather than in their favourite double scull that the world and Olympic champions went down, to another world champion pair in the coxless four final at the national championships at Lake Karapiro.

Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh, the world champion pair, combined with Emma Twigg and Erin Tolhurst to give the Auckland Regional Performance Centre the win over the Evers-Swindells' Waikato combination.

The Auckland combination clocked 6m 45.84s for the 2000m distance to Waikato's 7mn 0.62s.

Haigh said a solid rhythm and a high stroke rate gave them the edge.

"We had an awesome rhythm that we kept ticking along. We came out of the start rating 43 [strokes per minute] and we stayed up there," Haigh said.

Waikato could do no more than to hold on to second with South RPC third.

Haigh and Coles will face the Evers-Swindells again today in the women's eight final.

Tasmania's world championship representative Kirsty Fleming was beaten to second place in the women's lightweight singles final by Central's RPC's Candice Hammond.

A stunned and exhausted Hammond could not believe her result.

"The race was very hard," said Hammond, who had trailed Fleming for the first 1000m. "The water flattened out in the second half and I was able to react and get into a rhythm."

Hammond, 21, spent the winter training in Canada and is hoping to make the national team.

Canaviron retained their coxless four title. Matthew Trott, George Bridgewater, Eric Murray and Carl Meyer with coxswain Sam Heveldt, took a handy lead in the race, leaving Wairau and Auckland to fight it out for second. "We knew the others, especially Auckland, would be fast out of the start so we had to get a jump on them," Murray said.

The Canaviron four split into two and race against each other in the pairs tomorrow.

World champion Mahe Drysdale hit the water for the first of five finals and with partner Simon Lack won the men's double easily. Invercargill's Nathan Cohen and Richard Hamilton were second, more than four seconds behind.

- NZPA