Munich World Cup Finals

Its been a great day here in Munich. The weather was fine, light head wind (if anything) and the New Zealand Crews all performed with distinction.

• The B finals were yesterday afternoon and after our womans double took the win (7th overall) our mens four could only manage 3rd (9th overall)
• The A finals started yesterday and Duncan got us off to a good start with a lead all the way victory in the lightweight single for our first gold.
• Robin Tinga our adaptive sculler was next to go with a credible performance to finish 4th. He would end up being our only crew in an A final that didn’t bring home a medal.
• This morning our pairs lead off, the womans pair led from the start and held a good length throughout the race. Coming into the last 250M the Chinese threw everything at them and it ended in a photo finish with our girls coming off best with a very tight fought Gold medal.
• The mens pair completely dominated their competitors, they led from the start and extended to a 5.5sec lead by the 1000M, the race was all but over and try as they may the British could only try and make the distance look less than embarrassing, by the end the margin was down to 2.5sec and our second gold of the day.
• The Mens double had a battle all the way through their race to be piped by a canvass by the Germans but still a good result taking home silver.
• Emma Twigg raced next and going through the 1000M was right up with Knapkova of the Czech Republic, unfortunately she was unable to reverse the order and came home with Silver, still a very credible result first up.
• I raced next and the race panned out pretty much as planned. Campbell took an early advantage getting out to about a boat length lead going through the 500M, I was sitting in 2nd just under a length up on Tufte and Synek. Second 500M I slowly started to close the gap on Campbell. I was feeling really good and at the 1000M felt like I still had a lot left in the tank. I turned on the turbo at about 1100M going past Campbell and spreading the field. I took 3.5sec out of Campbell in the third 500M and 2 seconds out of Tufte and Synek. It was pretty much a repeat of the worlds back in 2007 except this time no one managed to close the gap in the last 500M so I took the win by 3.5sec (my biggest ever winning margin in world cups), Campbell held on for second and Tufte Bronze. So a great way to start and at least I know things are on track and going in the right direction.
• The Lightweight double raced next, they led right from the start and opened up a very clear gap over their opposition, they held this to the end with another very impressive open water win.
• That left only the womans quad to race. They also had a good race, they got a little behind in the first 1000M but really started to move through the field in the second 1000M, they moved up and passed the Chinese for 3rd position then set off after the British, unfortunately they weren’t quite able to close the gap but still finished with a bronze rounding out a great day and a good first up regatta for them.

This is our most successful world cup ever with 5 golds, 2 silvers and 1 bronze, not bad for 11 newish crews. None of us are getting complacent yet as we realise that it is still very early days and the hard work is still ahead of us. This is a good indication we are on the right track but there is still a lot of quality crews missing from a number of the fields and all our competitors will now take stock and set about chasing us down in the coming months. It is however a very pleasing way to start. There are some very positive signs considering we only got off the plane a week ago, while some of the fields are weak most of wins were convincing and by clear water and we are yet to do any speed work, so should be able to get even faster as we move towards the worlds. That is the real prize this year and these are just steps along the way.

We look forward to getting back into training over the next few weeks to try and keep our positions in Lucerne and Poznan, between now and then there will be more racing but that should just help sharpen us up.

I will be back with more results as they happen, until then take care.

Mahe