Kiwi Rowers claim five World Cup medals
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New Zealand won five medals on the final day of the World Cup regatta in Bulgaria with crews across the boat classes pushing close to world best times.
Defending world champions Ben Taylor and Oli Welch won gold in the Men's Pair, finishing just 0.54 seconds outside Hamish Bond and Eric Murray's record row from the London Olympics in 2012.
Conditions were quick on the Plovdiv course and Taylor and Welch signalled they were in reach of the record as they passed through the first 500m in 1min 29.17sec, well under the 1.31 first 500m posted by the Kiwi Pair in London.
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The record was still on at the 1000m mark, Taylor and Welch going through in 3.01.76 compared with the Kiwi Pair's 3.03 in London. Bond and Murray went through the 1500m mark in 4.37 in London, Taylor and Welch went through in 4.35.32.
The last 500 was their slowest and they crossed in 6.09.04. "It got a bit messy," said Welch. "The course definitely kind of slowed down and it got a little bit rough towards the end. We probably started getting a bit tired as well." They were oblivious to just how close they'd come.
"We didn't really know until we got interviewed and they asked us how did it feel to go one second outside the record," said Welch. "We were like, 'What? We didn't know we did that'. It was quite a nice surprise."
Two weeks ago in the Seville, Finn Hamill and Ben Mason rowed the C Final alongside Croatia's Olympic stars Valent and Martin Sinkovic. It was a race neither crew wanted to be in. Both were back in the A Final for the Men's Double Sculls and with the breeze still pushing things along, a world best time looked like a prospect too.
The New Zealanders shot out at almost 60 strokes a minute but were 4th through the 500m mark as China and the Sinkovics tussled for the lead. At that point the Kiwis were just hanging on.
"The transition onto our rhythm just didn't really happen," said Hamill. "We were three or four seconds slower in that 2nd 500 than where we needed to be. It was pretty laboured and sluggish."
The Croatians built through the middle 1000 to put them on pace for a world best time while Hamill and Mason set to work on chasing down the Chinese. They managed to crack them over the last couple of hundred metres to win silver in 6.05.36, the Sinkovics winning in 6.00.97.
The Croatians nearly beat their own world best time of 5.59.72, set in Amsterdam in 2014.
Alana Sherman, Isla Blake, Kate Haines and Ella Cossill were nearly seven seconds back on the United States in the preliminary race of the Women's Four two days ago.
They also focused on their middle 1000m in the final and closed the gap to just over three seconds to win silver.
New Zealand finished in 6.18.99. The Americans crossed in 6.15.75, just outside the world best time (6.14.36) set by New Zealand in Amsterdam in 2014.
The Women's Quadruple Sculls of Olivia Hay, Stella Clayton-Greene, Beckie Leigh and Veronica Wall also won silver, finishing in 6.17.27 behind the USA (6.08.83).
It was a step on from the preliminary race where they were more than 12 seconds behind in third.
Fred Vavasour, Campbell Crouch, Harry Fitzpatrick and Josh Vodanovich so nearly made it a silver medal in their final of the Men's Four, just pipped by Romania in the final 100m.
But a bronze is a significant step up for a crew that, apart from Campbell, is in its first season of Elite racing. Coach Mike Rodger had seen something from the heat that he knew they could build on for the final.
The Women's Pair of Katie Lush and Juliette Lequeux finished fifth (6.59.59) in the opening A Final of the day. Americans Kaitlin Knifton and Teal Cohen won gold, crossing the line in 6.50.82, just three seconds outside of the world best time (6.47.41) set by New Zealand's Kerri Williams and Grace Prendergast at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
The Women's Double Sculls of Eva Hofmans and Sophie Egnot-Johnson were racing their first A Final at a World Cup event. They finished fifth in a time of 6.56.01, Italy winning the gold medal in 6.45.36.
The Men's Quadruple Sculls of Arie Magasiva, Callum Tutbury, Oscar Ruston and Ben Olifiers, all in their first season of top international rowing, were also fifth.
The squad now returns to New Zealand and a fresh round of seat racing to finalise crews for the World Championships in Amsterdam in August