For two days this regatta belonged to two players who barely disagreed about anything. Matthew G and JoanneH traded the lead through Saturday and went into the finals separated by two points, running almost identical cards. Then the finals happened, and the two who had set the pace finished fifth and sixth.
The champion is Imogen, who started Sunday ninth on 383 and ended it on 703. A finals day that the overnight leaders needed to survive, Imogen used to win the whole thing. This is what a regatta decided on the last day looks like.
Final standings, top six
| Rank | Player | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Imogen | 703 |
| 2 | tim34 | 688 |
| 3 | Crew Picks | 675 |
| 4 | rowenaprice | 673 |
| 5 | Matthew G | 668 |
| 6 | JoanneH | 662 |
Forty one points covered the entire top six, and the bottom four of them are separated by just thirteen. Imogen aside, this was a blanket finish that any of the chasers could have won with one more correct final.
How it turned
Three finals decided the title, and the new champion was on the right side of all three.
Men's Double Sculls. The field leaned on Serbia. Matthew G, JoanneH, tim34 and Crew Picks all took it. Belgium won. Only Imogen and rowenaprice were on the winner, banking eighteen while the Serbia backers took four. First blood to the contrarians.
PR1 Women's Single. Switzerland won it. Imogen, tim34 and rowenaprice were on Switzerland for the full points. The overnight leaders were not: Matthew G, JoanneH and Crew Picks had all gone to Ireland, who finished out of the points. A clean twenty six to nil swing in the champion's favour.
Women's Eight. The closer that broke the regatta open. Great Britain won, and Imogen and tim34 were the two who called it. Crew Picks and Matthew G were on the United States, rowenaprice and JoanneH on Australia 1, and none of those boats medalled. Two players scored the lot, four scored nothing.
Stack those three together and Imogen took roughly sixty points out of the overnight leaders in a single afternoon. That is how ninth becomes first.
The favourites' day
The thing that made Matthew G and JoanneH so hard to separate all weekend, shared picks, is also what sank them together. When the crowd-favourite calls came good they both scored, but on finals day the calls they shared kept missing. Serbia in the Men's Double, Ireland in the PR1 Women's Single, the United States and Australia 1 in the eights: zero after zero on the boats they held in common.
Matthew G did land Australia 1 in the Men's Pair for a full twenty six, and JoanneH got the United States right in the Women's Four. But one big hit each was not enough on a day when Imogen was hitting three. The leader board does not care that they led for two days. It only counts the last result, and the last day went against them.
The chasers who nearly caught it
tim34 ran the champion close in second, matched to Imogen on the two biggest swings of the day, the Women's Eight and the PR1 Women's Single, and only adrift where Imogen's Belgium call in the Men's Double pulled clear.
Crew Picks took third on the back of the single best individual call of the finals: the lone United States 2 pick in the Mixed Double, worth twenty six points that nobody else in the top six saw coming. rowenaprice was fourth, the only player to score in the Women's Pair by backing the Czech Republic into second, and one of the two who had Belgium in the Men's Double.
On the water
The real regatta gave Great Britain a day to remember, and the players who trusted them were rewarded. Great Britain won the Women's Quad, the Men's Four, the Women's Single, the Women's Eight, the Men's Quad and the PR1 Men's Single, a clean sweep of the boats almost everyone had picked them in. The Netherlands took the Women's Double and the Men's Eight, Germany the Men's Single and the PR3 Mixed Double, Australia the Men's Pair, and the United States the Women's Four, with a United States 2 double in the Women's Pair and the Mixed Double that quietly shaped the fantasy table.
The last word
World Cup III was a lesson in why the final day is the only one that pays. Lead for two days and you still have to land the finals. The two who set the pace played it safe together and got caught by a player who was prepared to be different when it counted. Imogen called Belgium, called Switzerland, called Great Britain in the eight, and turned ninth place into a title. That is the game.
