New Zealand came away with an impressive three gold and three silver medals in the final World Cup regatta in Munich on Sunday, the final test before the London Olympic Games.
Eric Murray and Hamish Bond ended the World Cup series unbeaten for the third season in a row. They dominated the men's pair race from 500 metres onwards and head to London unbeaten since the last Olympics.
Julia Edward and Louise Ayling took their first World Cup gold, doing it the hard way and rating 38 strokes per minute into a headwind for the entire 2,000 metres.
A lead of half a second at 500 metres was another turnaround from Lucerne for Peter Taylor and Storm Uru and gave them the springboard they needed for a superb win - New Zealand's third of the day. All of the important crews likely to feature in London were present in the final, so the New Zealand win was a valuable form guide.
Nathan Cohen and Joseph Sullivan bounced back to the front after the disappointment of Lucerne with a spectacular second place from the outside lane in the men's double sculls. The Kiwis strength has always been in their ability to attack through the second half of the race, but their weakness has always been their start. With a much more competitive first 1,000 metres, they proved they will definitely be a force to be reckoned with in London.
Emma Twigg took a solid second place behind Ekaterina Karsten, the 39 year old double Olympic and six time world champion. In the men's event Marcel Hacker, the 2002 world champion, took his first World Cup win in years and proved he could be a factor in London too. The top three scullers from Lucerne, including Mah Drysdale were all missing from the final.
A quick start by world champions Rebecca Scown and Juliette Haigh was not enough to contain the British World Cup series leaders and Lucerne winners Heather Stanning and Helen Glover. The Romanian Olympic champions were a closing third, and on their rate of improvement will be fully competitive with the top boats at London.
The women's double scull final included two New Zealand crews, the world bronze medallists Fi Paterson and Anna Reymer and reserves Genevieve Armstrong and Zoe Stevenson. Great Britain and Australia ran way with the race from the very early stages and for New Zealand the interest was in the rivalry between the 2011 bronze medallists and the young pretenders.
Reymer and Paterson, left in a wilderness after the Aussies and Brits disappeared early on, came home a disappointing fifth, six seconds down on their young team mates.
The women's quad took sixth, a long way off the pace, but this was their first race weekend together after two injuries, so they can expect to improve and be closer to the outright pace in London. B final appearances for the men's quad and the men's four resulted in second and fourth place finishes respectively for eighth and tenth overall.
Results - Munich World Cup Regatta 2012
Men's Pair (Bond and Murray) - Gold
Lightweight Women's Double Scull (Edward and Ayling) - Gold
Lightweight Men's Double Scull (Uru and Taylor) - Gold
Women's Pair (Scown and Haigh) - Silver
Men's Double Scull (Cohen and Sullivan) - Silver
Women's Single Scull (Twigg) - Silver
Women's Heavyweight Double Scull (Armstrong and Stevenson)- Fourth
Women's Heavyweight Double Scull (Reymer and Paterson) - Fifth
Women's Quadruple Scull (Gray, Bourke, Trappitt, Macfarlane) - Sixth
Men's Quadruple Scull (Storey, Arms, Tripp and Manson) - Eighth
Men's Four (Uru, Hammond, Harris, O'Neill) - Tenth
