26th August 1999

Four, pairs, Haining excel

The men's four, pair and women's pair qualified for next year's Olympic regatta today in world semi-finals. Batten and Lindsay sagged, Searle was out-manoeuvred, while Haining found his old form.

Britain's four won their semi-final with Italy and New Zealand behind them. From the other half the finalists for Saturday are Australia, France and Norway. The British result means that the entire men's sweep team - the eight, the pair and the four - have qualified for their boats (not their crews) for next year's Olympic Games.

Dot Blackie and Cath Bishop, 1998 silver medal winners in pairs, left their qualifying position of third very late, looking sluggish at the halfway point but coming good with a terrific sprint to run in just behind the Germans and Romanians. Less than a second separated the three crews. The British were fifth at half way, eight seconds down on the leaders. They then did splits of 1.49 and 1.49, faster than any 500 metres of all the boats except for the German first quarter. This secures Olympic qualification for a women's coxless pair. Canadians, Australians and Russians were successful in the other semi.

Peter Haining, too, produced magic moments. The lightweight sculler who was world champion from 1993-95 and is now aged 37 produced a tactically brilliant race to finish second, taking the lead towards the end but just losing it at the line to the Hungarian Gergely Kokas. Sam Lynch of Ireland also led and qualified in third place.

Stephen Williams and Simon Dennis continued their progress with a worthy second place in the coxless pairs behind half of Australia's Oarsome Foursome, Drew Ginn and James Tomkins. The British crew showed early on, dropped the Canadians Morgan Crooks and David Calder, and fought neck and neck with the Italians Dario Lari and Pasquale Panzarino for second and third place even though there was no serious challenge for the three qualifying places after 1000 metres. Their performance gives the British men's team its second qualified Olympic boat, the eight having qualified on Wednesday. Croatia, Germany and France were successful from the other, faster, semi.

Greg Searle had a slow start and never made up enough to qualify for Saturday's final of the single sculls. Derek Porter of Canada moved into the lead early in the race and the Bulgarian Ivo Ianakiev held grimly on to the second qualifying place as Ziska of Slovakia, Koven of the US and Searle mounted repeated attacks. Searle finished fifth and qualifies for the C final for rankings 13-20. He will now have to qualify for the Olympic Games in next summer's Olympic qualifying regatta. Other qualifiers were the Olympic champion Xeno Mueller, the Czech Vaclav Chalupa, the world champion Rob Waddell and the Italian Nicoli Sartori.

Miriam Batten and Gillian Lindsay are double sculls world champions no longer, having finished fifth in a race in which they never showed amongst the leaders. The Chinese Liu and Zhang and the Dutch van Dishoeck and van Nes opened a huge gap between second and third place, the Chinese leading until near the end, while the battle for third was between the Swiss Luethi and Wicki and the French double Malmary and Garcia. The French succeeded in holding off the Swiss challenge. Germany, Lithuania and Australia qualified from the other semi.

Alison Mowbray really had no chance of qualifying for a single sculls final in a race dominated by Katrin Rutschow of Germany. The world champion Irina Fedotova of Russia made a slow start but came through to second, and Canada's Marnie McBean overhauled Romania's Mariora Popescu in the closing stages to take the third qualifying place. From the other semi, the qualifiers for Saturday's final were Neykova of Bulgaria, Karsten (nee Khotodovich) of Belarus and Sonia Waddell of New Zealand.

Kirsty McClelland-Brooks goes to the B final of lightweight singles after a good run. She met the pace she couldn't match in her semi-final, finishing fifth.

© Copyright Christopher Dodd, 1999.