NZ Rowers promising start at World Championship
Olympic medallists Matt Macdonald and Ollie Maclean have made a successful return to top-level competition on day two of the World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam.
Both took a sabbatical from the sport after winning a silver medal at the Paris Olympics in the men's four in 2024.
LATEST HEADLINES:
"It's good to be back," said Maclean. "I wasn't sure after Paris if I was going to come back." It's been a full-on couple of years. " I moved back to the US and worked for a start-up in San Francisco for about nine months and then moved to New York for nine months and did a Masters on the side as well."
Maclean and Macdonald then rowed in Japan before they both rejoined Rowing New Zealand’s High Performance squad to be selected into the four alongside newcomers Harry Fitzpatrick and Fred Vavasour.
They head into the semifinal after finishing third in their heat behind the USA, who won in 6min 22.22sec, and France (6:25.62). New Zealand was just 0.02 behind the French after a promising final 800m.
"It just took us a while to get into that rhythm we've been finding in practice over the last 10 days," said Maclean. "We know what speeds we can do when we are in that rhythm…you can obviously see the damage we can do when we do hit it."
The women's four of Alana Sherman, Isla Blake, Kate Haines and Ella Cossill also advanced to the semifinals after a gruelling matchup with Australia, Romania…and the gusting headwinds. Australia dominated the race from start to finish crossing in 7:09.67, ahead of Romania (7:17.15) and then New Zealand (7:22.55).
Ben Mason and Finn Hamill had a huge opportunity to test their boat speed and progress against Dutch power duo Simon van Dorp and Melvin Twellaar in the quarter-finals of the Men’s Double Sculls.
New Zealand established a clear hold on second place through the halfway mark, with the Dutch out in front.
The margin was just over three seconds at the 1500m mark before the Dutch eased off to cross in 6:44.95, New Zealand finishing in 6:47.99. Mason and Hamill go up against a tough field that includes Great Britain, Belgium and Czechia in tomorrow's (Thursday NZT) semifinal.
The women's qad of Stella Clayton-Greene, Olivia Hay, Beckie Leigh and Veronica Wall finished fourth in their heat and will race the C Final at 12.30am on Friday NZT.
