Rowing: Golden day for coxless pair's first row together

Juliette Haigh (left) and Rebecca Scown. Photo / Christine Cornege

Coxless pair Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown made their first international row together something to remember in Munich last night.

The pair won the gold medal in the A final of the World Cup regatta, bagging an all-the-way win in 7m 15.64s, finishing almost 6s ahead of a Romanian crew with China third.

Haigh is a former world champion and Olympic finalist, back after a year away from the sport. Scown performed strongly last year with Emma-Jane Feathery, but she and Haigh have justified the faith of the national selectors in putting them together for this season.

"It was an outstanding row," their coach John Robinson said last night. "We expected them to do well but we weren't too sure. You never know until you race opposition, to see how good you are.

"We've got an old head in the bow [Haigh] and a good, young, determined girl in the stroke seat and the combination is working really well."

There was also gold for defending world champions Hamish Bond and Eric Murray in the men's coxless pair, while lightweight double scullers Storm Uru and Peter Taylor were pushed into second in their A final.

Bond and Murray kept up their dominance over British pair Andrew Triggs-Hodge and Peter Reed, winning in 6:30.05, .79s ahead of their closest rivals. Serbia were third 13s back.

World champions Uru and Taylor and Britain's Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter had a tough tussle throughout their final. Purchase and Taylor crossed in 6:26.56, 1.04s ahead of the New Zealanders.

New Zealand's better-performed of their two coxless fours - Sean O'Neill, Hamish Burson, Jade Uru and David Eade - were fifth in their A final, while the women's quad, with a rejigged crew due to injury, were sixth and last, 12 seconds behind winners Germany.

Earlier, multi-world lightweight single sculling champion Duncan Grant suffered a rare setback, taking silver behind Hungary's Peter Galambos.

One notable absentee was four-time world single-scull champion Mahe Drysdale, who sat out the regatta.

He had been troubled by a back niggle, but was training yesterday and is expected to be fit for the Henley regatta in England at the start of next month.