Twigg takes honours at NZ Rowing Beach Sprint
- Apr 27
- 2 min read
World champion rower Emma Twigg has taken another step towards an historic double after winning the final of the Women's Open Single at the New Zealand Beach Sprint Championships at Orewa Beach .
Twigg is aiming to qualify for the Los Angeles Olympics when Beach Sprint rowing makes its Games debut in two years. That would make her an Olympian in two forms of rowing.
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The 39-year-old is a two-time Olympic medallist in the flat-water format, winning a gold in the single sculls in Tokyo and a silver in Paris. Last year, she won the Solo Women's Event at the World Beach Sprint Championships in Turkiye.
Twigg beat long-time friend and New Zealand crewmate Erin James in the final in flat conditions on Orewa Beach.
James is a relative newcomer to coastal rowing, earning selection to the New Zealand team last year after a 17-year break from the sport. She and Twigg were New Zealand teammates at the Junior World Rowing Championships in 2003. James is also 39.
Twigg has always maintained she will seek Olympic selection as long as she's enjoying the sport.
After her win at Orewa, she appears to have made the decision to go for it.
"We've got qualification next year, there'll be a continental qualifier and then world champs will be a qualifier as well. Then we start looking at what's going to happen in terms of prioritising boats for selection as we head into an LA format…It's going to get spicy."
Daily physio was keeping the body going, and torrid competition from James was keeping her mentally sharp and focused. "Erin's obviously made some massive gains," said Twigg. "We've been doing a lot of work on the course and in Tauranga."
Cambridge's Matt Dunham won the Men's Open Single against Waikato's Seb Fulton and was feeling the burn afterwards. "I had to race my guts out to go toe-to-toe with Seb. Man, the whole field's just getting better and better."
Dunham is also hoping to win selection for worlds and eventually make the team for Los Angeles.
He and James rowed the Mixed Double in Turkiye last year, where they finished inside the top 16.
They took on Twigg and Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Michael Brake in the final of Mixed Open Double at Orewa. Brake, demonstrating he can still move a boat despite limited rowing over the past few years, he and Twigg beating Dunham and James by just 0.42seconds.
"I love that I can just push as hard as I bloody can and give Matt and Erin a challenge…as long as I can hold my own and Twigg does her thing like the legend she is, that raises the standard for our whole team."
