The New Zealand rowing team will leave Florida with an impressive haul of seven medals following a strong closing day of finals on Monday morning (NZT).
Olivia Loe and Brooke Donoghue powered to the World Championship title in the NZ women’s double, clinching the win over their rival hosts USA and Australia.
John Storey and Chris Harris also stormed to gold in choppy Sarasota water to prevail on top with a blanket finish over Poland in the men’s double.
New Zealand finished second on the medal table, behind Italy and ahead of Australia, with three gold, two silver and two bronze.
Loe admitted the win came with relief, and a little bit of disbelief and amazement.
"We set goals really early on that we wanted to win this, but for it to actually happen you know, you’ve got to pinch yourself a little bit," she said.
"You get your first New Zealand fern to wear and then the next step is hearing your national anthem play… it was an amazing moment."
Storey said he and Harris have struggled to come to grips with the moment.
"I’m just trying to remember about how it went. I really can’t believe we managed to get the World Championship [title]."
"It was a tough race… That last 500 we were just picking it up and up and up, we didn’t know where we were coming at the end but we were just going as hard as we could."
The Kiwi women’s eight claimed bronze after being pipped late in their A-Final by Canada to narrowly miss out on New Zealand’s third silver for the regatta.
Romania clinched the win in an epic final.
Men’s single sculler Robbie Manson fought hard to live up to the expectation left behind by the legendary Mahe Drysdale, falling short of his best performance and finishing fifth in the final won by Czech Republic’s Ondrej Synek.
The lead up to Manson’s regatta was hampered by a rib injury, spoiling his form on the back of a dominant European campaign that saw him set a world’s best time.
Newshub.
