Rowing: World champions make winning start to campaign

Mahe Drysdale. Photo / Alan Gibson

New Zealand's elite rowers started their European campaign with a roar, with five gold medals, three silvers and a bronze from nine starts at the World Cup regatta in Hamburg.

Despite having only arrived in Germany at the start of the week, the NZ crews delivered an impressive group of results, although they were helped by the absence of their fierce rivals, Britain, with their entire squad withdrawing due to the E.coli bacteria.

Last night's A finals were top-and-tailed by wins for NZ's three world champion combinations, and four-time world champ single sculler Mahe Drysdale. He surged to a comfortable victory, in 6min 55.02s, over 4s clear of Swede Lassi Karonen.

The first three finals of the day went to coxless pairs Rebecca Scown and Juliette Haigh, Eric Murray and Hamish Bond, and double scullers Joseph Sullivan and Nathan Cohen, all winners at last November's world championships on Lake Karapiro.

Scown and Haigh had almost 5s to spare over South Africans Naydene Smith and Lee-Ann Persse, while Murray and Bond crossed 14s ahead of Germans Max Munski and Felix Drahatta in 6:20.39.

Sullivan and Cohen had some spirited competition from Argentines Ariel Suarez and Christian Rosso, winning in 6:15.10.

The other gold came from lightweight double scullers Storm Uru and Peter Taylor, who trailed their Chinese rivals at the 500m mark before going on to win in 6:24.57, 2.44s ahead of Fangbing Zhang and Tiexin Wang.

There were silver medals for a rejigged coxless four of Carl Meyer, James Dallinger, Chris Harris and Ben Hammond, single sculler Emma Twigg and non-Olympic lightweight single sculler Duncan Grant and a bronze for the women's quad in their straight final.

Overall, NZ crews won 16 of their 22 races in Hamburg.