By Terry Maddaford
New Zealand crews must cope with differing pressures when rowing has its time in the sun at next week's world championships in Canada.
Single sculler Rob Waddell will attempt to join the exclusive club of New Zealand crews who have won consecutive world titles when he takes to the
water at St Catharines.
He will have to hold off one of the most competitive fields if he is to join the Kiwi men's eight, who won in 1982 and 1983, and the women's double scull of Phillipa Baker and Brenda Lawson, who took gold in 1993 and 1994.
Waddell's second-to-none efforts at the world indoor championships and World Cup install him as a firm favourite.
After toying with a men's eight last year, New Zealand Rowing has decided to this time go with a coxless four. That quartet of Rob Hellstrom, Toni Dunlop, Scott Brownlee and Dave Schaper hold high hopes.
Dunlop is back after taking a year off in 1998 to complete his physiotherapy degree. He is reunited with Schaper after finishing fifth in the pair oar at the 1996 Olympics.
Brownlee brings the experience of two Olympic campaigns, while Hellstrom, in his second elite season, is regarded a real find and strong-man in the Brian Hawthorne-coached crew.
The four need to finish 11th or better to claim Olympic selection - no easy feat in a very competitive event in which the six crews in last year's final finished within 1.5s of each other.
Waddell's wife, Sonia, will be the first Kiwi on the water, in the early hours of Monday morning (NZ time) when she lines up in the women's single sculls. Needing to finish 10th - no worse than fourth in the B-final - to grab an Olympic spot, she faces a tough test in her comeback after being sidelined by illness.
With no women's four on the Olympic programme, New Zealand Rowing has opted for a big-boat bid, with the Steve Gunn-coached eight facing the toughest challenge to claim an early Olympic spot.
The crew, with Caroline Evers-Swindell taking the key stroke role, must finish in the top five in the August 30 final to win Olympic nomination.
Joining Evers-Swindell in that crew will be her twin sister, Georgina, Annabel Ritchie, Kate Patterson, Jude Ellis, Kate Robinson, Nicola Coles, Bea Van Mullekom and cox Rachel Goudie.
They will be the last of the New Zealanders on to the water, the only crew in action on the second day of heats.
New Zealand's remaining hopes are with the coxless pair crews of Rose Wallace and Maree Kaati and Gary Roberts and Andrew Gibbard.
The men must finish 11th or better and the women ninth if they are to claim early Olympic spots.
By Terry Maddaford
New Zealand crews must cope with differing pressures when rowing has its time in the sun at next week's world championships in Canada.
Single sculler Rob Waddell will attempt to join the exclusive club of New Zealand crews who have won consecutive world titles when he takes to the
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