Stuff Digital Edition

NZ women’s eight power into final as pair double up

THEIR race was pushed forward a day and the New Zealand women’s eight nearly missed the boat before qualifying directly for their final at the Tokyo Olympics.

The crew of Ella Greenslade, Emma Dyke, Lucy Spoors, Kelsey Bevan, Grace Prendergast, Kerri Gowler, Beth Ross, Jackie Gowler and coxswain Caleb Shepherd had to strain every sinew to grab the only automatic qualifying spot for their final from their heat yesterday.

Scheduled to race today, the NZ eight and their men’s counterparts had to readjust when a rough weather forecast for tomorrow – when they were due to first be in action at the Sea Forest Waterway – with a typhoon looming saw that day’s programme cancelled and squeezed into the weekend.

It meant Prendergast and Kerri Gowler had to race twice within three hours, also scoring a heat win in the women’s pair to progress to the semifinals.

‘‘It didn’t faze us too much,’’ Gowler said.

‘‘We’ve done two races in a day multiple times, so I think we were almost happy that we’ll have another extra day off. I think the girls in the eight were probably almost excited that they got to get out there today.’’

There was plenty of excitement in their race too. Rarely do boats come from behind in eights races at elite level, but that’s what the NZ women’s combination did, hunting down Canada and China over the last 200 metres of the 2km course to win by 0.32 seconds from Canada in a time of 6min 07.65s, with China fading late after leading for threequarters of the race.

The world champions from 2019 – with no world champs contested last year due to the worldwide pandemic – avoided Wednesday’s repechage with the win, along with the United States, who were just over a second slower than the Kiwis when winning the second heat.

‘‘We came prepared for a really tough battle,’’ Shepherd said.

‘‘I think that heat race was so . . . it’s the Olympic Games, everyone came to race and go as fast as they can. We just had to stay calm and really move when we needed to towards the end.

‘‘Happy to get the win and move on, but we’ll learn a lot from that race. It was good.’’

That means one less race for Prendergast and Gowler, who will compete in the pair semifinals on Tuesday, a following final lined up for Thursday, and the eights final scheduled for Friday.

In their heat, the NZ duo quickly assumed dominance and were able to reserve a little energy with victory in 7min 19.08s – the second-fastest heat time behind Canada’s Caileigh Filmer and Hillary Janssens. That pair, bronze medallists at the 2019 world champs, won their heat in 7:18.34.

Prendergast said stress levels for the two races weren’t any different from normal.

‘‘I think every race throws something different at you, so you just don’t know what to expect.

‘‘It doesn’t get easier, but I guess we get more confidence that no matter what’s thrown at us, we can manage it because we’ve been put in so many different situations.’’

The New Zealand duo will be comforted to know that they’re weren’t the only ones to have their already taxing programme made tougher by the change in schedule.

The Australian pair of Jessica Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre – silver medallists in 2019 – were also competing in two races in a short space of time, with the duo also part of the Australian women’s four, who had their heat two hours after their pairs race.

The 2019 world championship silver medallists behind the Kiwis were also impressive in their pairs heat victory and later doubled up successfully with an exciting win over Ireland in the four.

The New Zealand men’s eight will have to go through the repechage to make the final, but still marked themselves as medal contenders when finishing second behind The Netherlands in their heat. With only one boat from each of the two heats advancing directly to the final, the Kiwi crew of Tom Mackintosh, Hamish Bond, Tom Murray, Michael Brake, Dan Williamson, Phillip Wilson, Shaun Kirkham, Matt MacDonald and coxswain Sam Bosworth desperately tried to close the gap on the victors, eventually finishing just 1.45sec back, while defending Olympic champions Great Britain were surprisingly a distant third.

NZ’s time was the fourth fastest from the two heats, with their repechage scheduled for Wednesday.

SPORT

en-nz

2021-07-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281788517087680

Stuff Limited