Sophie Hosking and Hester Goodsell win gold at Rowing World Cup regatta in Munich
Last updated 22/06/2009 18:15:12
Sophie Hosking and Hester Goodsell win gold at Rowing World Cup regatta in Munich
Sophie Hosking and Hester Goodsell became Britain's first lightweight women's double scull to win gold when they won the World Cup regatta in Munich.
The pair raced home in 7min 18.47sec to usurp the Germans who took the title three weeks ago in Banyoles.
With 500 metres left Hosking and Goodsell had established a lead of 0.82 seconds and dug deep and in the final 200m and showed their strength by continuing to pull ahead of the field.
Goodsell said afterwards: "We both have similar mindsets of what makes the boat move fast. We talked about making history last night but then decided to put those thoughts away and concentrate on the process."
Britain added a further three silver medals and four bronze medals to their tally, ensuring they remain on top of the overall World Cup rankings, but it was short of the staggering nine golds they picked up in Banyoles last month.
David Tanner, GB Rowing's performance director, said: "I'm not going to say we were at our best today and some of our leading boats did not quite deliver.
"But we have some really good green shoots within the team who have the ability to step up in a season of change and growth."
Having been forced to reach the final via the repacharge, Andy Triggs-Hodge and Peter Reed were again beaten by New Zealand's Eric Murray and Hamish Bond and forced to settle for silver.
It was only the second international race the British duo, who were both members of the Olympic gold medal winning four in Beijing, have competed in as a pair.
Reed said: "All credit to the Kiwis. We had hoped to battle them side-by-side but we were outclassed today. It shows sport is not a fairytale but we're not going to give up hope.
"We have taken World Cup silver before and gone on to win the Olympics."
Alan Campbell also had to make do with silver as world champion and close friend Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand took gold in the single scull as both rowers finished ahead of double Olympic Olaf Tufte of Norway.
Campbell said: "I have definitely moved on this year but Mahe just had too much in the middle of the race today.
The women's quadruple scull notched Britain other silver, while Annabel Vernon and Anna Bebington had to settle for bronze in the double scull.
The other three crews to take bronze were the men's four and the men's eight as well as Adam Freeman-Pask, who was third lightweight single scull.
A new adaptive squad finished with three gold medals, and silver for the new arms-only single sculler, Andy Houghton.
Paralympic champion Tom Aggar won again but it was the newcomers in the gold-medal crew boats – Samantha Scowen in the double, and James Roe and David Smith in the adaptive four – who were most impressive.
So was Houghton, a former rugby player and new rival to Aggar, who has closed to within 10 seconds of the champion after less than a year's rowing.