New Zealand finished the season-opening World Cup regatta in Seville with a gold and bronze medal on the final day, as Ben Taylor and Oli Welch confirmed their status as the world's top Men's Pair and the Women's Four claimed a long-awaited podium finish.
Racing on the Guadalquivir River course, Taylor and Welch beat Romania convincingly, but the result followed a week in which the pair had been searching for their best. "The rhythm hasn't really been there," says Ben. "We've been struggling to find our way a little bit…we hadn't found that feeling we had back home in New Zealand."
The night before the final they made a conscious decision to stop chasing that feeling. "We just kind of said let's stop trying to search for that feeling and just back ourselves. I think just trying to simplify our rowing a bit and simplify the mindset brought us together."
It showed. New Zealand led Romania by 1.63 seconds at the 1000m mark and extended that margin to nearly three by the 1500m. When the Romanians lifted to 45 strokes per minute with 200m to go, there was no panic in the Kiwi boat. They crossed in 6:26.86, with Romania taking silver in 6:29.46.
For Kate Haines and Ella Cossill, the bronze in the Women's Four was a long time coming. Both have years of experience at this level, but a World Cup medal had stayed out of reach until now. "I've been waiting almost seven years to get a medal," says Kate. "The first thing Ella and I said to each other after the race was, 'Oh my God, we finally got a medal!'" She added: "We were really trying to soak it up together and remember how far we've come…you work so hard for these moments, so you need to make the most of them."
For Kate, the result meant more after a deliberate break from the sport. After the Paris Olympics she did about two months of training before stopping. "I was pretty burnt out, just lost the spark a bit, lost the motivation." She and Katie Lush spent a season club rowing at Molesey in England. "I just found the love for the sport again through being somewhere else, not training as hard, doing it for fun," says Kate. "It was huge. I found my purpose again."
The Women's Four finished in 6:43.24, with the Netherlands winning in 6:34.92 and Australia barely half a second back. Alana Sherman and Isla Blake, part of the crew that won bronze at last year's world championships, were joined in the boat by Haines and Cossill, who secured their seats at trials in March.
The Men's Four of Fred Vavasour, Campbell Crouch, Harry Fitzpatrick and Josh Vodanovich were racing their first A Final at this level and finished sixth in 6:09.19, behind world champions Great Britain who took gold in 5:54.46. The Women's Quad of Olivia Hay, Stella Clayton-Greene, Beckie Leigh and Veronica Wall were also sixth in their A Final, crossing in 6:42.50 with Germany winning in 6:30.15.
Katie Lush and Juliette Lequeux won the Women's Pair B Final in a performance built through the middle of the race. The pair was only assembled a fortnight ago when Juliette stepped in for the injured Alice Fahey. "I don't think we specifically attacked," says Juliette. "But we probably just kept finding each other more and more throughout that second 500." They held off a late challenge from the Neutral Athlete boat. "The last 500 we managed to step on it again. We just supported each other and were really consistent. Katie kept calling, 'Poised.'"
The squad now heads to a training camp in Varese, Italy, before the second World Cup event in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in a fortnight.
