KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's Duncan Grant put pre-season injury and illness behind him to retain the world lightweight single sculls title in Linz, Austria, yesterday.
Grant got the better of Dutchman Jaap Schouten for the first time this season, holding off his rival to win a race which saw one
competitor quit before the finish line.
After Grant false started, he jumped out into the lead followed by Olympic medallist Lorenzo Bertini, of Italy, with Schouten in fifth.
Going through the middle of the race, Grant, Bertini and Shadi Naghadeh, of Iran, were all in the medal spots with a gap back to Schouten, now in fourth.
Schouten began his move after about 1200m, overtaking the Iranian then the Italian and going after Grant.
Greece's Ilias Pappas came into contention as the leading three sprinted towards the finish line.
Schouten kept gaining on Grant but the New Zealander narrowly held on, with Pappas third.
"It's just a great feeling," Grant said. "As I had a back injury I was struggling. Some months ago when we arrived in Europe I started to prepare for this big day and now it's just an amazing moment."
The lightweight sculls is a non-Olympic event. It was one of a number of non-Olympic class world titles decided at the same Austrian venue which hosted the world junior championships, which finished on Sunday.
New Zealand completed the junior regatta with a gold medal in the girls' four, silver in the boys' eight and bronze in the girls' quadruple scull.
The girls' four had dominated their heat and qualified straight to the final, so little was known about their tactics other than they were fast.
Italy went out strongly, taking a dangerous-looking two-second lead at 500 metres. But the New Zealanders - Sophie Spiers, Anna Dawson, Hayley Hoogeveen and Lucy Spoors - stayed calm and fought back with a blistering middle 1000 metres that brought them just about level by the 1500m mark.
In a grandstand finish between the two crews over the final 500 metres, the New Zealand crew rowed through the Italians to win a superb gold medal in 7min 00.41sec. Great Britain were third and Germany, Australia and the US completed the field.
In the boys' eight, Germany shot off to a comfortable lead and for the first 1500m New Zealand tracked second-placed US.
Another breathtaking burn over the last 500m to the line brought Michael Berry, William Meates, Ben Bullock, Jason Kitchen, Andrew Healey, James O'Connor, Duncan Hall, Isaac Holden and cox Matthew Cameron back into contention.
With 100 metres to go it started to look like the New Zealanders could do it, but a desperate German crew held them off by four-tenths of a second.
The girls' quad couldn't quite live with the pace of Germany and Belarus but established themselves early in the race as faster than the Belgians, Italians and Greeks.
A strong second half brought the leaders back but Regan Barkla, Paparangi Hipango, Sarah Gray and Julia Trautvetter had to be content with bronze.
The boys' coxed four bounced back from the disappointment of missing the A final to win the B final in style.
- NZPA
