Women’s Pair (W2-) – Finals

A–Final

Australia and New Zealand met for the first time today. They were both respective winners of their semifinals yesterday with Australia’s Jessica Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre recording the faster time. But this new Australian duo was up against the World silver medallists, the World Best Time holders and the much more established crew of Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler. Out of the starting blocks Italy 1 struck 47 strokes per minute. Settling into 34 and 35 respectively New Zealand and Australia started to pull away from the rest of the field reaching the first 500m mark as 1 – 2. Going into the second 500 Prendergast and Gowler managed to get a boat length lead over Australia with the United States 1 of Megan Kalmoe and Tracy Eisser slotting into third.

New Zealand continued to lead and coming into the finals sprint both Australia and New Zealand went up to 36 strokes per minute. It was not much more than a procession with Prendergast and Gowler remaining in first, Morrison and McIntyre holding second and Kalmoe and Eisser back a bit in the bronze medal spot.

Results: NZL, AUS1, USA1, CAN2, ITA1, CHN1

Grace Prendergast (b), New Zealand, gold
“We’re really happy, we were excited going into this final. We really just focused on our own race. Our plan is always to gain as much experience as possible. It’s quite rough conditions out there but it should be a good preparation for Tokyo.

Annabelle Mcintyre (s), Australia, silver
“It was difficult out there, it was quite rocky. Congratulations to New Zealand, they raced well. The last 500 meters we just tried to lift the race and smoothen out as much as possible as I think we were a bit too tense in the first portion. I’m really happy with the result as it’s our first international race this season. 

Megan Kalmoe (b), United States of America, bronze
“We got four races this weekend so we had lots of opportunity to learn and to grow our knowledge base. We really wanted to focus on having a strong first 1000 meters as we know the two other crews are really fast there. So we did that and we had a really awesome race.”

Re-watch the race here

B-final

Germany’s Anna Schanze Tabea Schendekehl grabbed the lead at the start and held it over the Abraham twins of Chile. These two crews challenged each through the middle of the race with the United State2 and Italy 2 right with them. At the half way point only two seconds separated the top four crews. Then Allyson Baker and Emily Huelskamp of USA 2 jumped into the lead and rating 35 took their boat home in first.

Results: USA2, GER, CHI, ITA2, CHN2, IRL