Waihopai Club revels in golden season
ROWING
Toby Pascoe In its 125th season, the Waihopai Rowing Club has had its most memorable year, taking eight gold medals from the national championships on Lake Karapiro, near Cambridge.
After wins by the women’s senior single, senior quad and senior four, and the men’s senior single and senior four during day one of the finals on Friday, there was the risk of complacency from the squad in Saturday’s finals.
But Sarah Hamilton and Kristen Froude continued their assault on the senior class with another gold medal in the women’s senior pair.
They had a close battle with Nelson’s Anna Miles and Kirsty Thompson.
After a stoppage 100 metres out from the start line when a crew became tangled in weed, the race was restarted and Waihopai took the early advantage.
Nelson attempted to launch an attack but Waihopai held firm to take a one-second win. It meant another gold medal for Waihopai and a fourth for Hamilton.
The Waihopai women’s quad of Morgan Shepherd, Jessica Hayes, Ingrid Mitchell and Lori Comer made a move after finding themselves behind the Avon four from Christchurch at the 1000m mark.
Coming into the last 500 metres the bows of each boat were lined up, with Waihopai upping the stroke rate to begin the sprint.
After an intense sprint, Waihopai moved half a boat length ahead to secure the gold medal and successfully defend the title they won last year.
This combination of girls later joined with Hamilton plus Lisa Owen and Kristen and Katelyn Froude to form a formidable women’s senior eight combination.
Waihopai were favourites and had a good tussle with the North Shore eight from Auckland through the first 500m, before Waihopai put in a strong middle 1000m.
With Avon from Christchurch creeping up on North Shore, Waihopai were able to pull ahead by a length and maintained the margin to the last stroke.
The result was a historic one for the club, with the first women’s senior eight win, as well as an emotional one for Southland legends like Peter Sinclair and coach John O’connor.
Katelyn Froude said the win was the hardest of the week. ‘‘From about 30 strokes out the bodies were hurting but the girls stayed strong as a team and we just kept pushing as hard as we could every stroke.’’
Next it was the men’s turn and Toby Pascoe, Ollie Behrent, Mark O’connor, Matt Malcolm, Guy Redpath, Ben Mcleod, Tom Jenkins and T J Leeming were going to have a harder affair, qualified third-fastest.
Going through the 800m mark, the ‘‘kitchen sink’’ call was made, and Waihopai moved ahead of West End of Auckland and Hawke’s Bay. However, West End and Hawke’s Bay responded and had too much horsepower, pulling ahead by a couple of metres to secure first and second place respectively with Waihopai in third place.
Storm Uru (Waihopai) and Nathan Cohen (Invercargill) took a silver medal in the men’s premier coxless quad with Central RPC and Nathan’s doubles partner, Joseph Sullivan, taking the title.
Genevieve Behrent (Waihopai) was part of the Southern RPC women’s premier eight that successfully defended their title from last year in a dominating performance.
Earlier in the day, Behrent took fifth place in the women’s premier single with Emma Twigg taking the title. The result is significant for Behrent as she heads into Olympic trials next week and is searching for a place in the women’s quad.
Hayden Cohen (Invercargill) and partner Nathan Flannery (Avon) had a good win in the men’s under-21 double scull and also took a silver medal in the under-21 coxless pair.
The pair are frontrunners for returning to the under-23 New Zealand team this year.
Tessa Young (Waihopai) and Olivia Loe (Avon) took second place in the women’s under-21 double scull.
Waihopai held on to the centennial scull awarded to the club with the most points in sculling events, and John O’connor was deservingly awarded coach of the year.
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