Eric Murray, half of New Zealand's unbeatable pairs combination, inflicted a rare defeat on single sculls world champion Mahe Drysdale at the North Island rowing championships at Lake Karapiro on Saturday.
Three-times world champions, Murray and Hamish Bond have an impeccable international record in the pairs since 2009, but Murray showed impressive solo form in beating five-times world champion Drysdale.
Only .4sec separated the two at the finish of the 2000m course, Murray's 7min 33.40sec fractionally ahead of Drysdale, who has only recently settled on a training regime which overcomes on-going arthritis-related back problems.
Another of New Zealand's London Olympic medal hopes, world champions Juliette Haig and Rebecca Scown, had a solid hit-out out in the women's pair, cruising to a 7sec win in 8min 17.64sec. The duo then combined with Kayla Pratt and Kelsey Bevan for a 7min 56.03sec win in the coxless four.
Two new-look combinations did battle in the competitive men's coxless fours, with New Zealand 2 - Tyson Williams, Adam Tripp, Sean O'Neill and Chris Harris - clocking 6min 43.88sec to edge out New Zealand 1 (David Eade, Hamish Burson, Jade Uru, Ben Hammond) by just over a second.
New Zealand has qualified 11 boats for the London Olympics after a stellar performance which included four gold medals, one silver and four bronze at the world championships in Bled, Slovenia, last September.
NZN