Rapley effort catches the eye

Curtis Rapley showed yesterday that the national rowing championships are not all about the big names cruising into the finals.

Contesting the first men's lightweight single sculls semifinal at Lake Karapiro, Rapley gave his all to nab third spot behind the illustrious duo of world champions Peter Taylor and Duncan Grant.

The result of his efforts to foot it with the big boys could be clearly seen and heard from the banks.

"It was a tough race," Rapley admitted shortly after recovering from his exertions.

While Taylor, Grant and second semifinal winner Storm Uru have their sights set firmly on world championship gold at the same venue later this year and are able to operate under maximum capacity this week, rowers like Rapley are pushing themselves as hard as possible to make an immediate impression. "Hopefully I can be named for the under-23 trials this year," Rapley said.

"Hopefully that effort caught the eye of the selectors."

Rowing New Zealand's selection panel will name their triallists on Sunday after the completion of the national champs, and Rapley, competing for the Waikato Rowing Performance Centre, would love to be on the list of contenders for this year's world under-23 champs.

He has a busy programme that is typical of many of this week's rowers.

"I'm also rowing in the lightweight pair, lightweight double and under-21 pair," Rapley said.

"The single's probably not my main event - that'd be the double with Andrew Annear." Rapley rowed at secondary school level for Bethlehem College "mostly as a sculler - we weren't a big rowing school so I was usually rowing by myself or in a double".

After working on his parents' farm last year, Rapley moved to Cambridge to work with the Waikato RPC programme since mid- October under head coach Ian Wright, after being coached throughout secondary school by Duncan By de Lay.

The bigger names yesterday had few problems advancing to the finals today and tomorrow.

Mahe Drysdale headed home Taylor - who has been producing some of the fastest times ever for a lightweight sculler recently - and Joseph Sullivan in the first semifinal of the premier men's single sculls in a winning time of 6m 47.20 seconds.

Those three will meet Nathan Cohen, Duncan Grant and Marcel Hacker in Saturday's final after that was the finishing order in the second semifinal, with Cohen's time 6:50.60.

Emma Twigg will head the women's single sculls final after an easy semifinal win yesterday.

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