N.Z. eight favoured for gold

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32977, 25 July 1972, Page 22

N.Z. eight favoured for gold

(-V.Z.P..4. Staff Correspondent» LONDON. West German sports writers and commentators have installed the New Zealand eight as the favourite for the gold medal at the Munich Olympic rowing. In spite of the fourth place finish of the New Zealanders at the West German championships over the Olympic course at the week-end, the assembled experts felt that the crew had shown enough of its world championship form at this stage to prove the men to beat, the New Zealand manager (Mr F. Strachan) said.

"We are happy with the way the boys went,” he said, “the things that beat us were coming straight from winter, travel fatigue, and the break we’d had from regular training.” Mr Strachan said that the New Zealanders had decided to pass up the Austrian championships in Klagenfurt next week-end and remain at their Bavarian training camp at Lenggries. Hanover regatta This means that the next competitive outing for the New Zealand crew will be the international regatta at Hanover on August 5 and 6. All the crews which competed at the week-end, together with the powerful East German and Russian contingents, are expected to take part. Mr Strachan said the eight and four without cox had hoped to be within six seconds of the winners at this week-end’s regatta, but had not quite managed this schedule.

In the eights, the New Zealand crew managed to get in front at the 250-metre mark after the eventual winner, the United States, had begun at a furious 48-stroke pace and held on at the 500 and 750-metre stages. "By 1000 metres we were a second behind and then the boys started to run out of steam and our rowing lost its bite,” said Mr Strachan. “We were ready for about half-a-race which was about what we thought would be the case.” The New Zealanders eventually finished 9.545ec behind the Americans. Faded late

The coxwainless fours had much the same sort of race and were only 2.ssec off the lead at the 1000 metres but faded away over the last half of the race. Mr Strachan said that the competition in the coxed fours was very tough, but if the New Zealanders pulled out all the stops they could be up with the leaders, while in the single sculls, M. Watkinson had been well satisfied with his performance in reaching the semi-finals.