Rowing: Twins double up again for World Cup regatta

Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell are back in the same boat in Switzerland this weekend. Picture / Hawke's Bay Today

New Zealand's Olympic rowing champions Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell return to their speciality in the woman's double sculls for the World Cup regatta starting in Lucerne, Switzerland, on Friday.

The twins went their separate ways and contested the single sculls, with relative success, in recent regattas in Munich and Amsterdam.

Coach Dick Tonks anticipates his strategy of racing the sisters in single sculls will have whetted their appetite to re-establish their dominance in the double.

The Evers-Swindells may not have things all their own way in Lucerne after the success of the Bulgarian combination of Olympic single scull bronze medallist Rumyana Neykova and her partner Miglena Markova at the first two World Cup rounds.

The men's single sculls has attracted the largest field in Lucerne with New Zealand's Mahe Drysdale hoping to continue his outstanding improvement against 26 of the world's best, including Germany's Marcel Hacker and Olaf Tufte, of Norway.

With the world championships in Japan next month, the New Zealand team are pinning high hopes on Munich World Cup gold medallist Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh in the woman's pairs, and George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle in the men's pairs.

Both combinations will be favoured to record podium positions this weekend.

The New Zealand men's four of Eric Murray, Carl Meyer, Steve Cottle and Donald Leach have now recovered from the early setback of illness and will seek to benchmark their progress ahead of the world championships.


- NZPA