Rowing: Rowers to fore on golden afternoon

Mahe Drysdale - world champion. Juliette Haigh and Nicky Coles - world champions. George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle - world champions. Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell - world champions.

New Zealand's rowers were showered in gold following the most successful sporting hour in this country's history at Gifu, Japan, yesterday. This wasn't so much the mouse that roared but one that grabbed a loudhailer and screamed.

Rowing New Zealand are in the habit of hanging portraits of its champions at their Lake Karapiro base but they'll be pushed for space after yesterday's 'oarsome', and unprecedented, day.

Athol Earl, gold medallist in 1972 in the eight and a current selector was understandably "ecstatic".

"I'm scared I'm going to wake up and it hasn't happened," he said.

While Earl said you couldn't differentiate among champions, there were two he saved special praise for.

"Mahe Drysdale, first time up as a sculler is pretty unbelievable. He hasn't been rowing for a long time, either.

"But the other one I'm excited for is Nicky Coles stroking the women's pair. We've selected Nicky for crews, we've dropped her from crews. She's had more hidings from us than anyone. She's fought, she's kept on saying, 'you have to pick me'."

Coles herself said: "I'm just really spaced-out to be honest and it's an amazing feeling. I was as nervous as hell going into the race because there was actually quite a lot of pressure on us to do well.

"It was blowing up a head wind as well which is really not our ideal conditions and we were expecting some of the big girls to go especially fast, which they did.

"After the first 500m we were quite far behind but Juliette's so good in those situations and she called the race. She kept saying, 'We're coming back, keep going' and that we were catching up."

Coles said the Olympics might carry more prestige "but to be the best in the world is a great feeling. It surpasses everthing I've ever done in my life before".

Coles also paid tribute to coach Dick Tonks. "He's an absolutely incredible coach and I'd say he's been responsible for everything we have achieved this year.

"This whole week I've been thinking how great it would be if we could pull off all four and I sort of thought, why not? There's no reason why we can't do it after our successes at the World Cup.

"There's an awesome environment within the New Zealand team and having that competition just makes such a difference."

Meanwhile, Drysdale, the Mt Maunganui sculler, was the toast of the rowing world yesterday as he led from start to finish to bring home New Zealand's first gold medal.

Drysdale, 26, beat a star-studded field including Norwegian Olympic champion Olaf Tuft and the Czech Republic's Ondrej Synek to win his first world championship medal.

Just five months ago he was lying in Waikato Hospital with a serious back injury after coming off second best in a collision with a water-skier on Lake Karapiro.

Drysdale's single-midedness was the biggest factor in him turning to the single after being part of a promising four at the Olympics.

"I was told I had potential and if I was still interested in pursuing it after Athens then I could try for Beijing," he told the Herald on Sunday.

There should be no question of that now.

Juliette Haigh and Nicky Coles followed in the pair. A year ago, they were shaking the water out of their boat after spilling in the heats at Athens. The fact they subsequently made it through to the final via a repechage pointed to their mental toughness.

They trailed the Australian pair of Sarah Outhwaite and Natalie Bale and the US pair at the 500m mark yesterday but cleared out to win by more than 3.5s.

Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater, who had the agony on missing out on an Olympic bronze by the width of a bow ball in Athens, were virtually untroubled in winning the men's pair by three seconds from Ramon Di Clemente and Donovan Cech in the South African boat in a time

"It gives me goosebumps when you get in a boat and know it's going really fast," Nathan Twaddle said recently. His skin must be fair puckered up after that, then.

Such is the mastery of Olympic champion double scullers the Evers-Swindell twins that anything but first was unthinkable. However, their dominance is being challenged by the Bulgarian crew of Rumyana Neykova and Miglena Markova who finished just under three seconds back of the twins who won in 7m 08.03s.

These crews' dominance was reflected in Australia's third place time of 7m 22.86s.

The regatta was also a personal triumph for uber-coach Richard Tonks who is in charge of Drysdale, Haigh and Coles and the twins. John Robinson coaches the men's pair while Chris Milsson coached the men's four who battled through to the final before finishing sixth.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY