Rowers wind up for last shot at Olympic qualification

The golden run of the New Zealand men’s eight to Tokyo Olympic glory should be an inspiration for a group of elite rowers at this week’s trial on Lake Karapiro.

Thirteen women and eight men are hoping to make a crew to attend the last-chance Olympic qualifying regatta in Switzerland in May.

The men’s eight failed to gain an automatic Olympic spot at the 2019 World Championships and they had to then go through the final qualification regatta.

As it turned out, they won the qualifier and then went on to score a stunning win in the Olympic final.

The general manager of high performance at Rowing New Zealand, Judith Hamilton, said the journey of the men’s eight was special, but not unusual.

“There are plenty of examples from other countries also that have gone there and then have gone on to the Olympics a couple of months later and achieved great success — so it by no means discounts them from the medals.”

New Zealand had eight boats qualify at last year’s world championships and this week will decide if it’s worth trying to get another three qualified.

The boats they’re hoping to fill are the women’s pair and the women’s and men’s quad.

The women’s pair of Kate Haines and Alana Sherman just missed out on gaining a spot at last year’s world champs and Hamilton believes the rowers in contention for that boat are showing enough to get a trip to the last-chance regatta and then the Olympics.

“All the data over the summer suggests that they’re tracking well for that qualification spot.”

Hamilton says the two quad crews have been a bit of a revelation, having initially thought they’d focus on a place in the 2028 LA Olympics.

“We embarked on probably more of a development project with the quad crews, because we never contested them last year and so it’s exciting to have them trialling to see if they can be selected.

The 21 rowers in this week’s trial will be well tested and Hamilton says it’ll be the biggest occasion in the careers, so far, of many of them.

There are 14 rowing events at the Olympics with Rowing New Zealand having already decided not to contest the eights despite winning medals in both events in Tokyo (the New Zealand women won silver).

Hamilton is happy to have eight boats already confirmed.

“Considering the amount of retirements we had post-tokyo, to have eight boats qualified is a magnificent achievement.

“The icing on the cake would be if we could get some more across the line.”

Rowing New Zealand has named the eight boats qualified for the Olympics to race in the second World Cup regatta in Switzerland which follows the last-chance Olympic qualifying regatta.

The team includes defending women’s single scull gold medallist Emma Twigg, and five members of the Tokyo men’s eight, now in different boats.

— RNZ