Rowing: Bond following in brother's footsteps

The men's open pair of Alistair Bond and Justin Evans gave Otago a shot in the arm at the South Island interprovincial championships on Lake Ruataniwha on Saturday.

Their narrow win over Southland gave the Otago team confidence but it was not enough to beat the larger Southland team at the two-day championships which also featured Marlborough.

Otago crews won four of the eight races on Saturday and had another four wins from 10 races yesterday.

Southland won the provincial contest with 44 points from Otago on 39.

Bond and Evans went stroke for stroke with the Southland crew and took the lead with only 10 strokes to go, and won by half a canvas.

Bond, the younger brother of world champion Hamish, showed encouraging form to suggest he is capable of following in the footsteps of his big brother.

Bond, a member of the North End club, was the outstanding male rower at the championships and was in two more winning crews yesterday.

He was in the men's open four, with Evans, Michael Nisbet and Fergus Fauvel, that beat Southland by three-quarters of a length.

It was an even race until the Otago crew made a push at the 1250m mark and pulled away.

The four senior rowers were joined by under-20 rowers Andrew Annear, Thomas Stott, Robbie Mears and Matt Plaisted in the men's eight that dominated Southland from the start and won by 2 lengths.

In the men's open double sculls, Nisbet and Fauvel took control from the start and had a four-length win over Southland.

The men's under-20 four of Stott, Annear, Mears and Plaisted dropped Southland at the start and pushed past Marlborough at the 1000m to win by three lengths.

Annear and Stott finished strongly to win the men's under-20 pair by half-a-length in a close race against Marlborough.

The women's open pair of Elyse Fraser and Sarah Lindley led from the start and beat Southland comfortably.

The women's open quadruple sculls of Fraser, Lindley, Johannah Kearney and Rebecca Craies also led from the start to beat Marlborough by a distance.

The women's under-20 quadruple sculls of Hannah Duggan, Zoe McBride, Caitlin Kearney and Saasha Bruce put up a game fight, losing to Southland by half-a-length.

The Wanaka-based Bruce finished second to Southland in the under-20 single sculls and she also finished runner-up with Oamaru-based Caitlin Kearney to Southland in the double sculls.

The women's open double sculls of Lydia Dockrill and Craies finished second to Marlborough.

 

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