Rowing: Quad sculls miss out on A final

New Zealand's rowers, John Storey, Matthew Trott, Steve Cottle and Robbie Manson. Photo / Supplied

New Zealand's men's quadruple sculls crew missed out on the A final at the Rowing World Championships by eight one hundredths of a second as they finished fourth in their semifinal in Bled, Slovenia tonight. (Friday, NZ time)

The quartet, made up of Steve Cottle, Robbie Manson, Matthew Trott and John Storey flew home in the final 500 metres of the 2km race, but couldn't overhaul the Italian boat that finished in 5min 51.34sec.

New Zealand, who finished in 5min 51.42sec, were fifth at the 1500 metre mark, behind Cuba, Italy, Australia and eventual winners Germany, but found their stride as the race went on.

Germany were the fastest qualifiers from the semifinals in a time of 5min 46sec and will be joined in the final on Saturday by Australia, Italy, Croatia, Russia and Poland.

Croatia won the first semifinal in 5min 45 sec, followed by Russia (5 min 47.31sec), then Poland (5min 47.41sec).

Earlier, Kiwi rower Danny McBride qualified for next year's Paralympics in London with a second-place finish in the B final of the men's adaptive single sculls final.

Last year's bronze medallist had only narrowly missed out on the A final and powered through the 1000m course in 5min 21.01sec, two seconds behind winner Jie Yang (5min 19.32sec) from China.

The top two finishers from the race qualified for London and McBride was in second spot at the halfway point. While he made up a second on Yang, he couldn't haul him in.

Brazil's Luciano Luna de Oliveira finished a further four seconds behind McBride in 5min 25.62sec to claim third place.

- APNZ