The routine’s nearly universal.
Check boat over an hour before race. Tie boat back on racks.
Warm up.
Race briefing where the focus is execute start and nail push to rhythm.
Nervous bathroom stop for some.
Hands on, go to water.
The 130th New Zealand Rowing Championships are underway.
The Double’s double comeback
“We are grateful that Rowing NZ has granted us some time away from the building to do our own training. The build up to Paris was a step for us and we’ve needed the time to reset. I’ve been training in Sydney and Brooke’s gone away and had another baby who’s only seven months old and we didn’t want to rush back.”
“Nationals is a great opportunity to get back in a boat together and compete against the other summer squad girls.”
“Now we’re in a position where we’re looking forward and we’re keen to be in LA.”
And with that Lucy Spoors revealed she and Brooke Francis are intending to make a second Olympic rowing comeback after the first one that gained worldwide attention in Paris in 2024 when they won gold in the Women’s Double.
Should they complete this amazing return, just what boat they row in is “out of their hands”.
”I think we know what we are capable of, and at the moment we’re just taking the opportunity to enjoy being able to get back out there on the water together,” says Lucy.
They’ve had a few rows together since Lucy returned from Australia where her husband is coaching at Sydney Rowing Club. Brooke is now in Rotorua with her husband and their two children.
“As you can imagine, our families gave so much for us to get to Paris that this last year or so has been about making things work for our families and giving the grandparents a rest,” says Brooke.
With the whanau refreshed, they’re ready to go again.
They had their first 2K race together since Paris in the preliminary of the Premier Women’s Double, winning in 7min 46.89sec over Summer Squad athletes Veronica Wall and Olivia Hay (7.47.98) and Stella Clayton-Greene and Kathryn Glen (7.56.66).
”It was a good first hit out,” says Lucy. “It definitely hurt a little bit, but I was expecting it to hurt.”
Getting base fitness back is the focus for now but there are definite goals for the big return in 2028.
”We won’t be racing at world champs this year but we would be keen to be at World Champs next year,” says Lucy.
It’s on. The mums are back and ready to show once again that anything is possible.
World champions Ben Taylor and Oli Welch were back in Avon colours at a Nationals in the Men’s Premier Pair.
They won heat one in 6.49.68, almost nine seconds up on Finn Hamill and Karl Manson.
Summer squad athletes Fred Vavasour and Harry Fitzpatrick won heat two in 6.50.75, 2.67s up on Josh Vodanovich and Campbell Crouch.
Upskilling sculler
Josh Lomas couldn’t be in a better place right now than wearing his Leander rowsuit, training out of Waikato RC and helping to milk 950 cows on a local dairy farm.
The 24-year-old’s on a journey halfway round the world from the famous club near Henley-on-Thames in a quest for speed in the single.
”The squad at Leander’s at an incredibly high standard this year so me and the coach had a conversation,” says Josh. “We talked about improving my boat skills, so we made a plan and agreed I was going to go away and do that.”
Josh did some research, decided Cambridge was the place to achieve that. And here he is.
“ I’m here for this Nationals and the next ones. After this Nationals I’ll be rowing for Waikato, and then hopefully go back to Leander and give it another go.”
He grew up on a dairy farm just outside Manchester and then went to a small agricultural university called Harper Adams in Shropshire. That’s where he started rowing four years ago.
”It’s not the most competitive of clubs,” says Josh. “But it got me in a boat and learning the basics. From there I went on to Hereford Rowing Club for two years, where they really taught me how to row properly. And then went to Leander where the standard was a lot higher, which improved me really quickly.”
And after making a few calls, he’s now got Nick Barton coaching him.
Josh reckons there’s been good improvement in the four short weeks he’s been here.
If it was tough at Leander, what about the heat he ended up in for the Men’s Premier Single, up against the likes of Finn Hamill, Ben Mason and Karl Manson.
Finn won in 7.08.04, Josh was sixth in 7.35.37.
“My aim was basically stick with them to halfway and then just see if I can cling on and I was still kind of with the pack at halfway, so yeah, can’t complain.”
So yeah, he’s got the B Final of the Prem Single later in the week and heats of the Senior Single tomorrow.
Just another step in the plan to return to the UK and crack the national squad.
Josh Lomas left Leander in the UK to improve his technical ability, so he figured “what better place to come than New Zealand where they’ve got such a history in moving small boats”. Photo: Sharron Bennett.
New beginnings
Cambridge’s para scullers Naomi Carter and Pita Shelford are already buzzing about the combined final that will involve them and four other athletes on Saturday in the Open Single.
But first things first, they were busy absorbing their first day of their first Nationals and the road to Lake Karapiro.
They’d just rowed an inclusion event in the Open Double.
Pita coxed in the 1990s up in Whangarei. He lost his lower left leg after spinal surgery left him with a non-functioning leg.
He went along to a Parafed give-it-a-go day and was hooked.
“Obviously you go through these really dark, deep, exclusive moments. So, to be active and out in nature and on the water, there’s something heavenly about it, especially the 5.30am ones.”
He’d been looking for a sport, but “I came to rowing because they were the only ones that got back to me, and that’s big, nothing but full support.”
Naomi’s been an active sportsperson all her life.
She was walking in Leamington when she was hit by a car. “Poly trauma, head to toe broken basically.”
Her lower leg held on for five months before the decision to amputate.
She was at the same give-it-a-go day as Pita last November.
“I came along to that and I was hooked. It took a few months to get things sorted and off the ground and then Pita and I were into it, with coach Dylan [Swain] watching us closely.”
She wants to head to Australian Nationals next to take on a bigger pool of competition.
She wants to take the sport as far as she can go. Pita’s the same.
“It’s where I’m meant to be,” says Naomi. “I grew up on the water, outdoors, under the mountain. Rowing ticks all the boxes.”
“I fall asleep to watching rowing clips on YouTube,” says Pita. It’s taking over our lives.”
Pita Shelford racing in the open para single sculls (1000m) prelim. Photo: Picture Show Ltd.
Up on blocks
Put yourself in Jack Buckley’s shoes for a second. He heads out to his car this morning where North Shore are staying up at Camp Epworth, a 20-minute drive from the course. Next thing: “Jack came running back from the car at 7am yelling his tyres were gone,” says his pairs partner George Langley.
Then Jack gets a photo from a mate at Avon with a picture of his tyres in their tent. Nothing much worries Jack Buckley but this is an annoying inconvenience when your Senior Pair heat is at 8.50am.
He and George were untroubled on the water as well, winning in 6.53.76, Wairau’s Aidan Bennett and Zac Jenkins winning heat one in 6.57.93.
North Shore’s Jack Buckley (stroke) and George Langley: Fast on water this morning in the Men’s Senior Pair. Photo: Sharron Bennett.
Feeling the heat
The first race of the day was the Men’s Club Double, with the new progression hovering over everyone: first four from each heat automatically qualify for the semifinals as well as the next six fastest qualifiers.
Two crews from Clifton were on both sides of the drop.
Atana Alipiev and Noah Prendergast finished fifth in heat two in 7min 19.88sec.
Jack Fuller and Hamish Perry were sixth in heat three in 7.15.60.
Jack and Hamish, you’re in. Atana and Noah, you’re out.
“That was tough,” says Atana, who was born in Sofia Bulgaria and moved to New Zealand when he was 10. “Luckily I’ve got my club single and Noah’s got his quad so we’ll be able to continue racing.”
The single went fine for Atana, a B Final awaits. Noah’s crew didn’t make it through.
“It’s just how it goes really, there’s got to be winners and losers, says Noah, who’s a Year 13 at Francis Douglas MemoriaL College in New Plymouth. “I’ve still got school [regattas] and that’s probably a target part of the season.”
Vale John Wilson Clark
He was part of the first golden age of New Zealand rowing.
John Clark went to the 1972 Olympics as part of the Men’s Coxed Four with Warren Cole, Chris Nilsson, Dave Lindstrom and cox Peter Lindsay.
The crew finished sixth in the A Final while the Men’s Eight won gold and the Coxless Four silver. Murray Watkinson was 10th in the Single.
Dave remembers him as a “big bastard” in a boat he says did well to make the final.
“For about 10 days they were trying to harden our crew up, twice a day we were doing three 2K courses. Warren was setting the pace, he was the toughest by a country mile, he would do a course and then he’d turn around and blast shit out of us. I rowed with him at Whakatane so you just knew to ignore him, you just don’t say anything. Well, what did John Clark do? ‘Oh sorry Warren, I didn’t quite get that.’ And I’m saying, ‘For Christ’s sake, stop doing that,’ because Warren would repeat his whole thing about how terrible it was and bloody John Clark was asking him for a second helping.”
“He wasn’t the sort of guy to get upset about things.”
John died on Saturday at home aged 81. A service for John will be held this Monday from 11am at St Peters In The City, Tauranga.
John Clark (left) in 1964 with his Tauranga Novice Four.
Andy Hay is a freelance producer, writer and Maadi Cup-winning coach. He was cox of the world champion New Zealand eight of 1982 and ’83. He is NZ Olympian #446.