The New Zealand women’s four impressed winning their heat on day two of the World Rowing Championships in Shanghai, China, yesterday.
The New Zealand crews have made the most of their opportunities as World Rowing’s new progression system inspired some desperate racing.
Top finishers from each heat earn automatic qualifying spots before fastest times across the event decide who advances after that.
Four New Zealand crews were in action on the Dianshan Lake course, and all advanced through automatic qualifying.
Alana Sherman, Isla Blake, Beckie Leigh and Juliette Lequeux produced the highlight of the morning session, winning heat two of the women’s four in 6min 31.51sec.
The New Zealand men’s four Flynn Eliadis-Watson, Campbell Crouch, Zack Rumble and Matt Dunham drew European champions Romania in their heat.
New Zealand were third through the first 500m behind the Romanians and Uzbekistan but moved into second by the halfway mark. They maintained that position and closed the margin across the line, to finish in 6min 0.69sec, 2.86sec behind the Romanians.
The progression system led to the unusual sight of all four crews from heat four making the semis, Croatia’s Sinkovic brothers and Loncaric twins winning in 5min 59.89sec, France second in 6min14sec and dragging Italy and Ukraine through as well.
The Kiwi men’s double sculls of Ben Mason and Finn Hamill were beaten by 1.56sec by the Serbs who finished in 6min 13.18sec.
Single sculler Logan Ullrich will potentially have the most arduous regatta of the New Zealand squad, facing four tough races in six days if he is to make the A final. He finished second (6min 52.95sec) in heat five, 1.55sec behind China’s Wei Han.
Ullrich races the quarterfinals tomorrow.
— Allied Media
