Rowing: Gold again for NZ twins

By NZPA staff

Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell applied a second golden coating to their rowing careers by winning the doubles sculls final at the world championships in Italy last night.

The New Zealanders confirmed their pre-race favouritism by completing the 2000m journey in Milan in a time of six minutes 45.83 seconds.

Germany were second in 6min 47.54sec and Russia third in 6min 49.50sec.

The 24-year-old Hamilton-based sisters, first crowned world champions a year ago in Spain, applied their pre-race tactics to perfection, leading at every mark as they sought to keep an eye on the competition.

They went into the final fearing Russia and Germany the most but they kept the Europeans at bay as they went through the first 500m split in a time of 1min 38.57sec, narrowly ahead of their rivals.

The order stayed the same until the end although Russia dropped off the pace while the Evers-Swindells were pushed hard but had too much in reserve for the German pair of Britta Oppett and eight-time world champion Katrin Boron.

Earlier, the New Zealand women's coxless four finished fifth and last in their final.

The crew of Maree Kaati, Nicola Cooney, Roslyn Papa and Mel Burke recorded a time of 7min 6.94sec to be almost 14sec behind the winners, the United States.

Only five crews entered the event, meaning all advanced directly to today's final.

The Netherlands won the silver medal while the bronze went to Germany, who were more than 10sec ahead of the New Zealand crew.

New Zealand were at the tail of the field from the 500m mark and the gap widened as the race progressed.

Georgina Evers-Swindell was over the moon at their accomplishment, which matched the feat of Philippa Baker and Brenda Lawson, who won the same world title in successive years, in 1993 and 1994.

She rated the win higher than last year's world championships final win when they also set a world record in Spain.

"For some reason this feels 100 times better than last year," she told NZPA.

"Last year was awesome but to line up against and beat (German) Katrin Boron who has been winning Olympic medals for years is just great.

"It's the fourth time we've lined up against her this year and the fourth time we've beaten her."

She said the sisters tried to ignore the pressures associated with defending a world title.

"We just tried to think about our own race and stick to our own race plan. We knew if we did that and stayed with the rest of the field ... we would be in a position to go for the gold medal."

- NZPA