Paul Mattick and Adam Freeman Pask once more dominated the field in the lightweight men's pair to take gold for Britain in a time of 6:50.65 this evening in Munich at the season's final world cup. They were race leaders virtually throughout. Australia were the early chasers in a repeat of this morning's semi-final but in the final flourish past the grandstand they were overtaken by Holland. Mattick said: "It went pretty much to plan; we had a gear or two left to use but it is always better to be a bit cautious rather than too brave. I was very happy as the first 1k disappeared and crews kept drifting off behind us and that's a really nice feeling. We were always intending to have a strong 3rd 500m and we had a good lead which doesn't happen often in lightweight racing "It's very exciting - whenever I get in the boat with Adam it seems to go well - he's unbeaten this season so it's a pretty good result for GB all round." Freeman-Pask added: "At the beginning of the season I didn't even think I'd be on the team and I've got a reasonable haul this year compared to most years so it just goes to show that when you are ready to hang up your oars just stick in there. I hope that I can get better and I just want to do more racing."
Kathryn Twyman backed up some solid earlier-round performances by taking sixth place in the lightweight women's single scull final. She was in contention in the first half but in the final phases could not get amongst the leading quartet in a race won by Pamela Weisshaupt of Switzerland. That left her locked in a battle for fifth and sixth place with Lucia Palermo of Argentina who got the verdict by just a tenth of a second on the line. In the Paralympic class finals today Britain, the 2011 World champions in the mixed adaptive coxed four, knew they had a tough battle on their hands in today's final against a revamped German crew. Germany were leading in the first half but the British quartet of Pam Relph, Naomi Riches, Dave Smith and James Roe, coxed by Lily van den Broecke, came through by inches in a nail-biting finale to take the gold in 3:25.25. "That was definitely one of our best performances", said Roe. "We have never had to come from behind with 250m to go. Obviously, we have practised that in training but we've never had to use it". "I've not been well for the past two and a half weeks so I just held on in there", said Smith. "That gives me a greater sense of achievement and Lily was great, she made all the right calls". Relph: said: "We knew that we were going to have some really tough competition here and this shows how much Paralympic sport has stepped on. We weren't pushed like that in the World Championships last year and that was only nine months ago. So the plan was to go out there and race our absolute hardest - we had brilliant conditions even though it was stiflingly hot. We knew we were going to be hard pushed and it was just a case of who had that last couple of strokes on the day. "I think we have a lot of confidence in our second half of the race and we knew that there was a strong possibility that we would be down at halfway and the plan was to stay relaxed and trust in ourselves and our fitness and experience as a crew to be able to come out on top. I'm really pleased with the result." Riches added: "We have moved on massively this year and we had to - we knew that winning by five seconds wasn't going to happen every year especially in Paralympic year when the whole world steps on and if you don't go with them you are going to be left well and truly behind. Everybody has improved. Good to win but it's also a wake up call". Van den Broecke said: "At one point in the race I had a tiny doubt that we could catch Germany but I used that as motivation for the guys and they answered with their legs. I knew that if we could time it right we could do it."
Andy Houghton was Britain's contender in the arms-only single scull final. At halfway he was lying third with Australia and Korea out front. Spain's two finalists were chasing hard as was Ukrainian Igor Bondar but Houghton, a computer specialist and training partner for Britain's Paralympic Champion Tom Aggar, held onto the bronze slot in a race won by Australia with Korea, hosts of the 2013 World Championships in silver. "I'm really disappointed with that", said Houghton who had leg muscle spasms throughout. "I just wanted a good run at it today as my times in training are comparable with these guys [the medallists]". "Whilst Andy is disappointed we feel that was a decent performance and he has done us proud", said team manager Louise Kingsley.