The Nga Tawa girls of Georgia Kendall (left), Bayley MacDonald, Jackie Gowler, Heather Gee-Taylor, Georgia Nugent-O'Leary and coxswain Savanah Gaskell make up the U18 four and U18 quad who are through to the A finals at the Maadi Cup in Twizel. Photo/Supplied
The Nga Tawa girls of Georgia Kendall (left), Bayley MacDonald, Jackie Gowler, Heather Gee-Taylor, Georgia Nugent-O'Leary and coxswain Savanah Gaskell make up the U18 four and U18 quad who are through to the A finals at the Maadi Cup in Twizel. Photo/Supplied
At least four Wanganui rowing crews were through to A finals at the 2014 Aon Maadi Cup in Twizel by late yesterday.
The Maadi Cup is the Mecca for secondary school scullers throughout the country, attracting literally thousands of competitors each season. Such is its popularity, the normally reliable andinformative www.rowit.co.nz website that provides instant results crashed numerous times yesterday as it dived into overload through the huge volume of traffic.
Since competition began on Monday, Jack Hughes and Jamie Clark have made the A final of the Under-18 boys pairs for Wanganui Collegiate, while the Nga Tawa girls managed to get three crews into finals.
Georgia Nugent-O'Leary and Jackie Gowler are in the A final of the U18 pairs and were also in the successful U18 coxed four along with Heather Gee-Taylor, Bayley MacDonald and coxswain Savanah Gaskell. The same mix with Georgia Kendall replacing MacDonald made the U18 quad final.
Clark and Hughes teamed up with fellow Collegians William Donald, Dylan Matthews, Lachlan Hoare, Oliver Lee, Louis Lelievre, Hugo Bidwell and coxswain Emily Gray to attempt late entry into the U18 boys eight A final.
They finished third in their heat and with only the top two automatically going through to the final, the Collegiate eight were forced into the repechage yesterday. In fact, the repechages were held as time trials after blustery conditions on Tuesday disrupted the programme, but coming third in their heat suggested the Collegiate eight were the fastest of the rest.
Meanwhile, former Aramoho Wanganui rower Sara Back is in two A finals for her new school, St Margaret's College in Christchurch. Back made it into the finals of the girl's U18 coxed four and the U18 eight.
Other Wanganui rowers, including a large contingent from Wanganui High School, were poised to gain entry into finals as the quarter-final and semifinal heats and repechages continued throughout the afternoon and early evening yesterday.
