Rowing: Kiwis march on in Munich

Three Kiwi boats were in action today in Quarter Finals and all marched impressively on to the next stage of the regatta.

In the first Quarter Final of the Women's Single Scull China’s Xiuyun Zhang led the way. Zhang is China’s most accomplished Chinese rower and has championship titles and medals from 1993 and 1996 respectively. Despite having missed two Olympics she is on the comeback trail for Beijing and is one of the favourites in Munich. Behind her in the race, a close battle ensued between former Under-23 Champion Julia Michalska of Poland and current Under-23 Champion, Emma Twigg of New Zealand. Michalska began with a small edge over Twigg but Twigg pushed back to get ahead of Michalska through the middle of the race. With 250m remaining Michalska attacked again upping her rate to 36. Emma held her off and advanced impressively to the Semi-Final to keep her Olympic qualification hopes alive.

Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand must have been feeling good after qualifying through the heats two days ago with the fastest time. In the third Quarter Final Drysdale took on Great Britain’s Alan Campbell at his own game - the early race sprint. In recent encounters Campbell has raced ahead and let Drysdale do the chasing, but this time Drysdale beat him out of the starting blocks and left him for dust. Both Drysdale and Campbell - as one would expect - qualify from first and second respectively but once again, the opposition would have looked closely and worryingly at Mahe's blistering pace.

Nathan Cohen and Matthew Trott completed a good day for the team when they gave notice of their potential speed by taking the lead of their Quarter Final of the Double Sculls - no doubt shocking both Olympic Champions from 2000 Luka Spik and Iztok Cop of Slovenia and the very experienced Jueri Jaanson of Estonia. Jaanson and Endrekson have won two Rowing World Cup regattas this season and would be assumed they were favourites. The new Kiwi kids on the block, however, hung in there by a nose through 500 metres.

Spik and Cop decided enough was enough and pushed past Jaanson and Endrekson and Trott and Cohen to take the lead. Again the gutsy New Zealanders held on. Slovenia won by less than a second, while Trott and Cohen qualified most impressively ahead of Estonia in second.

Tonight it's Quarter Final time for the Lightweight Double Sculls and crunch time in the repechage for Men’s and Women’s Eights.

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Mahe Quarter

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Double start

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Emma Quarter

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Mahe in full flight

ENDS

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