Rowing: Gold for Drysdale in record medal haul

Drysdale's winning margin appeared to be about 20cm on the finish line. Picture / Reuters

New Zealand produced its most prolific medal haul at any world rowing championships in England on Saturday but emerged without the golden tally of last year.

Just one of New Zealand's five medals was gold, to single sculler Mahe Drysdale, while the other crews settle for two silvers and two bronzes after some ferocious racing on the Eton Dorney course.

The most notable result was a bronze for women's double sculls sisters Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, suggesting the world dominance of the Olympic champions may be nearing an end.

They were involved in a nail-biting three-way battle in their final but bowed to Australian winners Liz Kell and Brooke Pratley, while fast-finishing Germans Susanne Schmidt and Britta Oppelt snared silver.

New Zealand won four gold medals at Japan last year but the twins were among three of those crews pipped into the minor medals today.

Only Drysdale defended his gold, in dramatic style as he launched a comeback to haul in Germany's Marcel Hacker, who appeared to have gold sewn up until the final few strokes.

In one of the closest finishes of recent times, Drysdale held his head in his hands after realising he had caught his great German friend and defended the title he won in more comfortable style at Japan a year ago.

Racing with the help of a tailwind, Drysdale needed a world record time of six minutes 35.40 seconds to win, beating Hacker's old mark.

The 27-year-old from Mt Maunganui was just 0.09sec clear of the German, the winning margin appearing to be about 20cm on the finish line.

Drysdale was fourth through the first 500m and improved one place through each quarter of the race. At more than a length behind Hacker through the 1500m mark, it appeared too much ground to cover but the New Zealander upped his stroke rate in awesome style.

Third was Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic, with O lympic champion Olaf Tufte of Norway fourth.

An exhausted Hacker later collapsed just before the medal ceremony and had to be stretchered away for medical aid as the New Zealand anthem played.

The Evers-Swindell twins trailed the Australians throughout a tension-filled race.

They appeared ready to launch over the closing stages but couldn't find their renowned finishing power to clock 6min 48.82sec, just over 1sec behind the winners.

The New Zealand pairs who won gold last year both picked up silver medals today.

The men's pair of George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle produced a storming final 500m but it wasn't enough to catch Australians Drew Ginn and Duncan Free, who built a sizeable early lead.

Four seconds adrift after 1500m, the New Zealanders finished within half a length, just over 1sec, behind the veteran Australians with a time of 6min 19.13sec.

Women's pair Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh also finished strongly for silver, relinquishing their crown to Canada's Darcy Marquardt and Jane Rumball, who led from the start and won in 6min 54.68sec.

The New Zealanders were tucked behind Germany for most of the race but pipped them on the line for silver in perhaps their best performance of what has been a mixed year. They were more than 2sec behind Canada.

Earlier New Zealand's Duncan Grant made a brilliant recovery to win a lightweight single sculls bronze medal.

Grant ran into trouble with the buoys on the left side of his sixth lane in the opening strokes of the race on the Eton Dorney course.

He dropped quickly to sixth and last but had righted his boat by the 500m mark to be fourth.

The sculler from Blenheim's Wairau club, who was a late inclusion in the New Zealand team, moved quickly past Elias Pappas of Greece but couldn't haul in British winner Zac Purchase or Spanish silver medallist Guimerai Zunzunegui.

Purchase, 20, won host Great Britain's first gold of the championships in a world best time of 6min 47.82sec, more than 2sec clear of the Spaniard.

The men's coxed four of Dane Boswell, Paul Gerritsen, James Dallinger, Steven Cottle and cox Daniel Quigley were to contest their final tomorrow.

Earlier today the men's coxless four of Eric Murray, Selwyn Cleland, Carl Meyer and Hamish Bond finished third in their B-final in a time of five minutes 54.98 seconds.

- NZPA