KEY POINTS:
New Zealand won four gold medals, two silver and a bronze in the rowing World cup at Lucerne, Switzerland, at the weekend.
The seven medals were an improvement on the three gold and three silver they won in the first World Cup series in Amsterdam three weeks ago.
Single sculler Mahe Drysdale bounced back from a non-podium finish in Amsterdam to take gold last night, as did the Evers-Swindell twins Georgina and Caroline (doubles sculls) and Juliette Haigh and Nicky Coles (women's pair) after seconds in Amsterdam.
Duncan Grant and Storm Uru made it a New Zealand one-two in the lightweight single sculls on the previous day, repeating their dominance in Amsterdam.
Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater, who won the men's pair in Amsterdam, took the other silver medal last night.
Hamish Bond, Eric Murray, James Dallinger and Carl Meyer, who also won gold three weeks ago, managed a bronze. However they caused the major upset in the leadup to the final by ending Great Britain's winning streak of 27 regattas.
Nathan Cohen and Matthew Trott just missed out on a bronze, pipped by Slovenia, in the men's double sculls.
The women's eight -- Erin Tolhurst, Fiona Paterson, Paula Twining, Nicki-Lee Crawford, Rebecca Scown, Emma Feathery, Simone Hudson, Tamsin Gilbert and Candice Bardsley (coxswain) -- finished fifth of the six crews in their final.
Drysdale, a master of coming from behind, sculled through both Henley winner Alan Campbell (Great Britain) and World Cup leader Ondrej Synek (Czech Republic) in a scorching second half of the race to win in 6min 45.65sec. But race times, including Drysdale's, were generally slow.
Campbell clocked 6min 45.94 and Synek 6min 47.28.
Drysdale however showed superb finishing sprint to hold off the resurgent Campbell in the final few metres.
"There's definitely a general improvement on Amsterdam," Rowing New Zealand's high performance manager Andrew Matheson told NZPA.
"There's still some sharpening up to do and we've got five weeks to get that under our belt before Munich (world championships from August 16).
Half the team will return to their Belgium base while the other half will do their buildup for the world championships in Germany.
Grant finished five seconds ahead Uru and must now fancy his chances of gold in Munich. Uru will defend his world under-23 title in Strathclyde, Scotland, later this month.
The Chinese combinations who had won the women's double sculls and the pair in Amsterdam were not in Lucerne.
The Evers Swindell twins were in control of their race from go and led at every marker looking confident. A comfortable last 500m flattered the opposition and it looked like the Swindells held back a little.
"The race plan is 'just go' because you never know what the other crews are going to do," Caroline Swindell said.
"We were expecting heats and semis to be a lot stronger. We definitely have the motivation, we are not lacking that. We have a few more weeks to get it faster but we don't know how fast the Chinese and the Australians are."
Coles and Haigh clearly signalled their intention for Munich.
Second at the 500m and 1000m behind the fast-starting Megan Cooke and Anna Mickelson of the United States, the New Zealand combination maintained their form and technique to hold a two-second lead at the 1500m before finishing about half a boat length ahead of the Americans. Both pairs decimated the rest of the field.
Australians Drew Ginn and Duncan Free looked smooth as they took the men's coxless pair just under a boat's length ahead of Twaddle and Bridgewater. The two crews now look like the ones to beat in Munich. With a new boat and new blades at Lucerne, Twaddle and Bridgewater are looking to regain the title they took in 2005.
Meyer, Dallinger, Murray and Bond will have taken heart from another blistering finish behind the British and Dutch on the line. They had left the race too late. The Dutch clocked 5min 51.48sec to take gold, Britain 5min 52.05sec for the silver and New Zealand 5min 52.19sec for bronze.
Cohen and Trott took fourth place in a top-class field, proving they had the pace to be contenders in Munich.
- NZPA
