Nga Tawa Diocesan pair dominate on lake

Nga Tawa's Georgia Nugent-O'Leary and Jackie Gowler with coach Ian Weenink after winning gold in the U18 double sculls at the Aon Maadi Cup yesterday. Photo/Supplied

Local schools have their first medals from the Aon Maadi Cup regatta in Twizel after the Nga Tawa Diocesan School pair dominated from start to finish while the Wanganui High School foursome had to overcome adversity on Lake Ruataniwha.

Nga Tawa's Georgia Nugent-O'Leary (stroke) and Jackie Gowler had been favoured to medal in the Under 18 Girls double sculls and so it proved. They were never headed on their way to the gold yesterday.

The pair won their heat, quarter-final and semifinal to progress as top qualifier for the A Final and duly delivered the victory, beating the St Peters No1 and No2 crews by just under four seconds.

Their 7-minute, 36.68-second time was not as fast as their quarter-final victory (7m 32.14s) but still proved more than enough.

Nugent-O'Leary and Gowler also came fourth in the A Final of the U18 women's pairs, while today they will team with Georgia Kendal and Heather Gee-Taylor in the U18 Girls fours final. Nugent-O'Leary is also in the A Final of the U18 Girls single scull, while she and Gowler will join Gee-Taylor and Bailey Macdonald in the U18 Girls quad.

Meanwhile, Wanganui High School's U17 Girls coxed four had to come from a long way back in the pack to claim the silver medal yesterday morning.

Kayla Spencer (stroke), Sammy Murphy, Taliah Su'a, Nicole Miller and cox Logan Campbell came seventh with no time taken (NTT) in their heat and had to enter the repecharge races.

"They had a bad start to it all," aid spokeswoman Anne Pawson. "It didn't help that in the first instance they had gear problems"

The WHS crew came sixth in repecharge to make the semifinals, then rowed to second in that race and repeated it in the A Final.

They finished in 7m 43.81s, around 13 seconds behind the winning Westlake Girls High School No1 crew and four seconds ahead of Baradene College No1.

Pawson said the record WHS team of 41 competitors, many juniors just attending for the experience, have punched above their weight.

Kayla Spencer came sixth in the U16 Girls single scull while a large number of crews made B Finals.

Today, WHS's Hugh Pawson is in the U18 Boys single scull A Final, while Spencer and Inga Schwietring are in the U16 Girls double sculls A Final.

Wanganui Collegiate's James Clark (stroke) and Jack Hughes placed sixth in the U18 Boys coxless pair oars yesterday.

Collegiate's best prospects are this afternoon in the U18 Boys coxed eight A Final.

Qualifying in the eighth lane, the team is William Donald (stroke), Dylan Matthews, Clark, Hughes, Lachlan Hoare, Oliver Lee, Louis Lelievre, Hugo Bidwill and Emily Gray (cox.)