Rowing: Twigg triumphs at World Cup

New Zealand rower Emma Twigg. Photograph by Brett Phibbs

Emma Twigg has often promised so much and today she delivered when she beat world champion Kim Crow in a sprint finish at the World Cup rowing regatta in Sydney.

The 27-year-old, who has won two bronze medals (2010, 2011) and one silver (2013) at world championships unleashed a powerful finish in the women's single sculls to pip Crow by 0.14 seconds. She was as much as four seconds behind halfway through the race before pulling ahead on the final stroke.

It was the highlight of a successful day for New Zealand crews at the first World Cup event.

Rebecca Scown and Lousie Trappitt also won gold in the women's pair, the women's lightweight double scull of Lucy Strack and Julia Edward and men's pair of Tom Murray and Alex Kennedy took silver and the men's eight claimed bronze.

It represented a good haul for the New Zealand rowers but the Sydney regatta was missing many of the top crews from Europe and in many classes rowers from Australia helped make up the numbers.

Some of New Zealand's elite squad also skipped the event, including the men's pair of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray and single sculler Mahe Drysdale. They will return to action for the next two World Cups events to be held in France in June and Switzerland in July. The world championships are in Amsterdam in August

The women's single scull was one of the most competitive classes in Sydney, with Twigg, Crow and Olympic champion Mirka Knapkova and Twigg will take considerable confidence from her win over Crow, who was unbeaten since the London Olympics.

"It was more about keeping composed in the 1000 knowing that she'd take a little bit out of me but also knowing that she's had a lot of racing this week and that she may suffer,'' Twigg told Newstalk ZB. ``When I came up the side of her I just put my head down and closed my eyes and managed to get through.

"Really good way to start off the season. I know Kimmy's had a lot of racing this week so she probably paid for that a little bit in the last 500 but it's always nice to beat a world champion on their home turf, that's for sure.''

The new women's pair combination of Scown and Trappitt is also showing good promise. Trappitt, a former Olympic quad sculler, has replaced Kayla Pratt in the boat after the New Zealand trials and dominated the final _ China were second five seconds behind.

Murray and Kennedy will vacate their seats in the men's pair for Bond and Murray but also showed good potential with their silver. They followed it up later with bronze with the men's eight, which was the same crew that won gold at last year's under-23 world championships.

Strack and Edward, who won gold in Sydney last year, couldn't match it with Australia Two and finished second. The men's four finished fourth behind the top two Australian crews and world champions the Netherlands.