Day two of World Rowing Junior Championships
The New Zealand Junior Rowing Team made another strong showing on day two of the World Rowing Junior Championships in Trakai, Lithuania, today.
The day’s racing saw all remaining crews lining up after a confident performance on day one.
Grace Holland and Rosie Ireland will face the semi-final in the women’s pair event after a third place finish in their heat.
The pair chased down second-place Pia Potocnik and Lea Hren of Slovenia in a powerful sprint finish but were pipped to the line by just 0.4 seconds. The heat was won by Katja Fuhrmann and Marie-Sophie Zeidler of Germany in convincing style.
The women’s four of Grace Loveridge, Kate Haines, Grace Watson and Kate Littlejohn missed out on a direct ticket to the semi-final after finishing their heat in third place, just outside of the top-two needed to progress.
The four made a flying start but couldn’t hold the pace and were left behind by a dominant Chinese crew and Poland. The New Zealanders will face a repechage tomorrow.
Sam Jones and James Hall dominated their men’s pair heat, leading from start to finish.
Jones and Hall were untouchable despite a late charge from the Italian duo of Simone Fasoli and Davide Comini.
The New Zealanders will go straight through to the semi-final while the rest of the field is forced to the repechage.
Gus Olifiers and Manawa Mclaughlin secured their berth in the men’s double sculls quarter-final after chasing down and rowing through Max Gompel and Casper van Luyken of the Netherlands in the repechage.
With just three crews lining up Olifiers and Mclaughlin needed to earn a first or second place to progress, and did so in style.
After trailing the Dutch duo for the first half of the race Olifiers and Mclaughlin made their move with 500 metres to go to take the win.
They will now face tomorrow’s quarter-final.
The men’s four of Daniel Williamson, Thomas Russel, Matthew Macdonald and Ben Taylor also impressed in their heat, crossing the line with a huge clear water advantage over Canada.
New Zealand powered out of the blocks and left the rest of the field in their wake as they laid down an outstanding performance.
Their finishing time of 6:13.810, a whopping seven seconds clear of their closest rival, awarded them a straight progression to the semi-final.
The men’s quad of Finn Jenkins, Mark Taylor, Luke Brady and Sam Monkley will face a repechage after a fourth-place finish in their first heat.
The Kiwi quad were unable to hang on to a flying Swiss crew, with Britain taking the remaining ticket to the semi-final.
They will now have one more chance to progress in tomorrow’s repechage.
Racing continues tomorrow.
Results, schedule and live commentary at www.worldrowing.com