In just their second ever race together the New Zealand women's rowing quad has qualified for next years Olympics.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The quad were one of three New Zealand boats to confirm qualification overnight after making their respective finals at the World Rowing Championships in Austria.
The others were the women's pair and the lightweight women's double.
Kirstyn Goodger, Ruby Tew, Sam Voss and Hannah Osborne were all reserves for other boats during the World Cup regattas earlier this year and were put together just a few weeks ago.
They placed second in their repechage and progress to the A Final with the top eight automatically qualifying for Tokyo.
Quad crew member Sam Voss, who last year won the world under-23 single sculls title says being such a new crew they were concentrating more on performance rather than a result today.
"For us it was just about going out there and trying to put our best race together, it was only our second 2000 metre race together this season, we were in second place for pretty much the entire race today and didn't quite realise until we crossed the finish line how close it had been the whole way down which was really exciting although we had a few nervous parents on the sidelines, but that's okay."
Voss says after the initial disappointment of missing out on a priority boat earlier this year, to qualify the quad for the Olympics after such a short time together is a bit of a surprise.
"We got thrown together in the quad and we've had a few mixed weeks of training over the last five weeks in our training block, but it's worked out in our favour which has been really exciting, I think going in with no expectations and with just the chance to enjoy racing really worked for us today and it's been really cool to hit something really big."
Meanwhile the men's eight finished second in their repechage to make the A final, but will need to finish in the top five to reach the Olympics.