Italian pair halt double bid

Press, 26 September 1988, Page 22

Italian pair halt double bid

NZPA-Reuter Seoul Italy’s Carmine and Giuseppe Abbagnale stopped a bid for a unique Olympic double firmly in its tracks yesterday when they won the men’s coxed pairs at the Olympic rowing regatta. The Abbagnales, the world and defending Olympic champions, led from start to finish to lift the title that Britain’s Steven Redgrave and Andy Holmes sought to add to the coxless pairs gold they won on Saturday. No two oarsmen have ever won both golds in Olympic modern history. The Britons staged a late run at the finish to take the bronze behind

the silver medallist, East Germany’s Mario Streit and Detlef Kirchhoff. Holmes and Redgrave, who were confident of the double, struggled in sixth place at the 500 metres mark. Despite two finals in two days, they found extra energy in the last 50 metres to snatch the bronze away from the Romanians, Dimitrie Popescu and Vasile Tomoia. The Abbagnale family’s success • in the men’s events continued when younger brother Agostino collected a gold medal in Italy’s quadruple sculls team.

Alf Hansen, at 40 one of the oldest rowers in the regatta, stroked Norway

into second place with East Germany third. The men’s eights went to form as fancied West Germany held off the Soviet Union to take gold. The United States was third. The world champion, East Germany, powered home to take the men’s coxless four final ahead of the United States and West Germany. Earlier, the medal ceremony military band played the East German national anthem three times as the Eastern bloc domination of the women’s finals continued. The East Germans, with two golds from Saturday’s three finals, added three more yesterday to bring

their tally to five out of six in the women’s regatta. The single sculls provided an upset with East Germany’s Jutta Behrendt beating the world champion, Magdalena Gueorguieva, of Bulgaria. Gueorguieva led for most of the race but a spectacular spurt by Behrendt in the last 500 metres took her to victory. Gueorguieva tired badly and the American, Anne Marden, a widely travelled financial analyst who borrows boats on her trips abroad to keep in training, snatched the silver in the last 30 metres. The Bulgarian was third.