Rowing: Regatta effort raises hopes

LONDON - New Zealand hopes of medals at the world championships next month soared after three podium finishes over the weekend at a World Cup regatta in Munich.

All came from women's crews - the coxless four and quadruple sculls were second, and the Evers-Swindell twins third in the double sculls.

Rowing New Zealand's high-performance commissioner, Barrie Mabbott, was pleased with the women's results, which came five weeks before the world championships in Switzerland.

But he warned against reading too much into the regatta results.

"There is still a little bit of cat-and-mouse going on," he said.

"Crews are not willing to show their hands with the world championships so close."

Mabbott was particularly pleased with the effort of coxless four Jackie Abraham, Kathryn Robinson, Rochelle Saunders and Nicola Coles.

After qualifying fastest from the heats, they finished strongly in the final, but too late to overhaul Australia.

Since the Evers-Swindell twins, Caroline and Georgina, were involved in both the double and quadruple sculls finals - which were only 1 1/2 hours apart - they had been told to ease up in the double if they were not in the lead.

Third behind Olympic champions Germany and Belarus in the double sculls, they joined Sonia Waddell and Paula Twining for second in the quad.

Germany led the whole way to win in 6m 42.34s, but Mabbott felt that the New Zealand quad had "four seconds up their sleeves," which would put them right up with Germany.

New Zealand's men's coxless four - Sam Earl, Ian Smallman, Rob Hellstrom and Jamie Fitzgerald - finished second to Croatia in the B final, ranking them eighth for the regatta.

Coach Dick Tonks said the injury-troubled and inexperienced crew - of whom only Hellstrom rowed at the 2000 Olympics - showed a lot of fighting spirit during the regatta.

The world championships are from August 18 to 26.

New Zealand crews will train for the regatta at Hazewinkel, in Belgium.

- NZPA