Golden Girls Keen To Remain Together

Golden Girls Keen to Remain Together for Defence of Double Scull Olympic Crown at Beijing

Three-time women's world double scull rowing champions, Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell, are keen to stay together to defend their title at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Georgina and Caroline, guest speakers at the Westpac Halberg Celebrity Sporting luncheon in Dunedin next month, arrived back home at the weekend fresh from their 2nd place finish behind the Chinese pair at this year's World Rowing Championship in Munich last month.

While it wasn't the result the rowing twins were looking for, according to Georgina it lifted their hopes for their title defence at the Beijing Olympics, based on their severely restricted training programme this year.

Guests at the Westpac Celebrity Sporting Luncheon will be able to hear first hand of the difficulties Caroline faced after being sidelined for eight weeks recovering from stress fractures to her ribs and about Georgina's damaged wrist, which had been operated on in December 2006.

"Back in April we didn't even think we would get to Europe this year," says Georgina. "The only training Caroline could do while she was recovering was to walk for eight weeks - hardly the ideal preparation for the world championships.

"So to be able to win the World Cup regatta at Amsterdam then get silver in a very strong field at Munich and qualify the boat for the Olympics despite all the earlier setbacks, we think was a very pleasing result."

The pair is looking forward to a brief break of a few weeks before the summer squad training starts again for the NZ rowing crews in early October.

While they have not raced in Dunedin, Georgina says the twins are looking forward to their Westpac Halberg Celebrity Sporting engagement at the Dunedin Town Hall on Friday, October 5.

She says the success of the Kiwi rowers at last months World Championship in Munich, where New Zealand won three gold and two silver medals and qualified 7 boats for the 2008 Olympics, augers well for the future of the sport.

Georgina also made it clear the twins have some unfinished business which they would like to attend to next year. "The Chinese pair (Qin Li and Liang Tian), while unbeaten this year, haven't gone anywhere near our best times yet, in fact no-one has," she says. And with an injury-free summer ahead of them she is confident the crack Kiwi combination could be in a position to hold off all challengers at Beijing.

The Halberg Trust has planned a total of 11 Westpac Celebrity Sporting Functions around the country, which started in Auckland on August 10 with the 1987 All Blacks tribute lunch at Eden Park and will finish in Wellington on November 2. Other keynote speakers confirmed include Sydney Olympic rowing gold medallist Rob Waddell, 2006 Westpac Sportswoman of the Year Valerie Vili and current Halberg Award winner Mahe Drysdale.

Tickets for the Dunedin Westpac Celebrity Sporting function are available from Duane Donovan, Sport Otago on 03 474 6350.

ENDS

© Scoop Media