Victoria do it again!
by Michael Wilson
The Victorian Mens Eight had to come from behind to win the Kings Cup. In perfect conditions
on the last race after 6 days of racing at the National Championships.
 The Western Australian crew lead early and looked hungry, but always in their shadows was the
Victorian crew driven in the stroke seat by James Tomkins. Tomkins was going for his 14th win
in Australia's premier rowing event. Tomkins said: "it was a fantastic race, Western Australia
and Queensland got out and had about half to three quarters of a length on us, but then the big
call for the big white V came in and we steam rolled them, we were travelling quite nicely."
Tomkins was humble in victory saying: "I am lucky I can still get in the crew and have a
crack at it."
Olympian Stuart Reside who was in the second placed WA crew said of Tomkins: "it is just a real
honour to row in the same era as him." The second placed WA crew, who lead all the way.
In the Womens Eight NSW stormed to victory, by nearly two lengths. Stroked by Kristina Larsen,
who stroked the World Champion eight and containing a number of other World Champions they lead
all the way to beat home Victoria and Western Australia.
The greatest race of the day was the Mens Lightweight Four for the Penrith Cup, resulting in
a dead heat between Tasmania and Western Australia. Tasmania lead all the way, WA made a huge
push with 400 to go, surging to line it was "bowball to bowball", after 20 minutes the Judges
announced a dead heat. Simon Burgess the stroke of the Tassie crew said: "we were pretty lucky
to get away with it" The WA stroke Glen Loftus said: "in he last 100 meters she was stroke for
stroke" Coming to the line Loftus said the call was: "up, up we had four strokes in the boat."
As one member of the WA crew said "a tie is always better than losing."
The Womens single was also nearly dead heat. Tasmanian Dana Faletic, had the lead all the way,
but WA champion Amber Bradley put everything she could possibly find into it and almost caught
Faletic on the line. The final margin was just 2/100th of a second.
Duncan Free won the Presidents Cup for the 5th time, South Australia the Victoria Cup for
Womens Lightweight Quad Scull, Queensland the Mens Youth Eight and NSW the Womens Youth Eight.
NSW won the Zurich Cup for overall Interstate races.
Interview with Tomkins after the race: Windows
Media File (85k) |
Wave File (776k)
Full audio and video will be posted during the week.
... more articles...
Last Updated - March 10th, 2002 04:52
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