Britain's Purchase, Hunter win at worlds

CAMBRIDGE, New Zealand (AP) -- British Olympic champions Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter won gold in the men's lightweight double sculls at the world rowing championships on Friday.

Purchase and Hunter won in 7 minutes, 13.47 seconds, finishing ahead of Italy's Lorenzo Bertini and Elia Luini by 2.41 seconds while defending champions Peter Taylor and Storm Uru of New Zealand finished strongly to claim third, edging out Canada.

Britain also claimed gold in the women's quadruple sculls on a day when seven A finals were contested. Debbie Flood, Beth Rodford, Frances Houghton and Annabel Verdon finished in 7 minutes, 12.78 seconds to beat Ukraine's Kateryna Tarasenko, Anastasiia Kozhenkova, Olena Buryaka and Yana Dementiava by just over two seconds. Germany took the bronze medal.

France's Jean-Baptise Macquet, Germain Chardin, Julien Despres and Dorian Mortelette were upset winners of the men's coxless four as Britain's world champions missed out on a medal.

France won in 6 minutes, 45.38 seconds from Greece's Stergios Papachristos, Ioannis Tsilis, Nikolaos Gkountoulas and Apostolos Gkountoulas while New Zealand took third, knocking the British champions from the podium.

Croatia's David Sain, Martin Sinkovic, Damir Martin and Valent Sinkovic won the men's quadruple sculls final in 6 minutes, 15.78 seconds, asserting its favoritism. Italy's Luca Agamennoni, Simone Venier, Matteo Stefanini and Simone Raineri were second and Australia third.

France's Fabien Tilliet and Jean-Christophe Bette won the lightweight men's pair from Graham Oberlin-Brown and James Lassche of New Zealand and Matt Jensen and Raes Crisan of Canada.

The Dutch crew of Chantal Achterberg, Nienke Kingma, Carline Bouw and Femke Dekker won the women's coxless four in 7 minutes, 21.09 seconds. Australia's Sarah Heard, Sarah Cook, Paulina Frasca and Kate Hornsey were second almost three seconds behind and the United States combination of Mara Allen, Grace Luczak, Adrienne Martelli and Alison Cox were third.

Canada's Lindsay Jennerich and Tracy Cameron won the women's lightweight double sculls from Daniela Reimer and Anja Noske of Germany and Christina Giazitzidou and Alexandra Tsiavou of Greece.