KEY POINTS:
Despite two collisions, New Zealand's world sculling champion Mahe Drysdale has won a different sort of prize in Italy, taking home a bag of gold coins.
Drysdale won the 11km Silverskiff race in Turin and with it euro800 ($1582) of gold coins and another euro1000 for smashing the course record by 27 seconds.
To win, Drysdale had to overcome two collisions and beat the two course record times set earlier in the day by Olympic gold-winning sculler Olaf Tufte of Norway and Sweden's Lassi Karonen.
He did just that, finishing the course in 40 minutes and 32 seconds, despite the too-close encounters.
"I was passing a lot of boats and all but two were polite and moved out of my way," he said.
"Unfortunately one stopped in front of me as I was going past so I had to stop, get untangled then start again.
"I had one more collision later as I was pushed under the buoys by someone refusing to get out of the way."
Drysdale said he had known he would have to set a course record to win and the collisions had just fired him up.
"Races like these are tough as it's all about suffering and pushing through the pain barrier for just over 40 minutes."
- NZPA
