Great Britain hauls in the gold at Munich Rowing World Cup

Of the 14 Olympic boat classes that were raced, Great Britain picked up medals in 11 of them – five golds, three silvers and three bronzes. This included a clean sweep of the lightweight events with gold in the lightweight men’s and women’s double and the lightweight men’s four.

The British medal haul added 79 points to Great Britain’s Rowing World Cup series points tally which now stands at 154 points. This is well ahead of Germany in second with a total of 72 points and as there is only one remaining regatta in the Rowing World Cup series, it will be virtually impossible for any country to catch Great Britain’s runaway lead.

China follows in third with 71 points while New Zealand stands a distance back in fourth at 43 points.

Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins of Great Britain tried for the same double header that had netted them two golds at the first Rowing World Cup in Bled, Slovenia. Grainger and Watkins won both the double sculls and the quadruple sculls. But in Munich they were not so prosperous. The duo won the double and then went back on the water in the quad only to find they were caught off guard by a fast-starting German crew. Grainger and Watkins had to settle for silver.

The British lightweight men’s double of Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter fought their way through to gold, beating the reigning World Champions, New Zealand in the process. Purchase and Hunter are the Olympic Champions but this is their first international race together since Beijing. Hunter commented after the race, “It was a tough race so long after Beijing, but it was fun as well.”

No British boats made it into the top three of the men’s single sculls despite a strong effort by their sculler, Alan Campbell. Instead Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic controlled the race with Germany’s Marcel Hacker coming through to silver. World Champion Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand did not race due to injury, but he was at Munich training with his squad. Drysdale commentated his event for World Rowing. Listen to Drysale’s views here: http://fisa.feedroom.com/

New Zealand achieved a double header by winning both the women's and men's pair. Rebecca Scown and Juliette Haigh absolutely dominated their race with Haigh commenting after, "It's my first regatta since the Olympics and it feels really great. I love being back. And it is obviously a really exciting year for us. We want to do well at the World Rowing Championships in our home town."

At their first Rowing World Cup for the season. Australia got two men’s fours through to the final with their second boat taking gold ahead of the United States and 2009 World Champions Great Britain.

The final of the series of three Rowing World Cup’s for 2010 will take place in Lucerne, Switzerland going from 9 to 11 July.

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