The sisters have spent the past five years sharing the same boat as members of their school team and the Hawke\u2019s Bay Rowing Club. <\/p>\n
Sarah has accepted a scholarship to the University of Oklahoma, covering all the costs for four years, while Megan has decided her future sits just a few hundred kilometres from home in Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to do vet school, and for that degree would be a four-year undergrad and then a four-year post grad, so a total of eight years, and then coming back to New Zealand, I wouldn\u2019t be able to transfer easily, so I\u2019d have to do another one of full vet school here,\u201d Megan says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, I\u2019ve recently had some back issues, which has kept my rowing to nothing for the past three months. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I don\u2019t want to add the pressure on me to be 100% by the time going overseas comes around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Megan starts vet school at Massey University in Palmerston North in February and said the decision to separate was emotional, but expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if we both stayed in NZ we wouldn\u2019t be on the same island because Sarah was going to Otago for med school,\u201d Megan says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe support each other. Sarah\u2019s doing what she loves, and I\u2019m happy for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarah, who is going to start her pre-med studies in Oklahoma in August next year, said her pathway began with an unexpected Instagram message.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a scam,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t apply for anything. Oklahoma reached out, then Indiana. I didn\u2019t want to get my hopes up, but it turned out to be real.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says balancing pre-med studies with 20 hours of training weekly is a challenge she is willing to take.<\/p>\n
Sarah Ritchie will study pre-med on a four-year rowing scholarship in Oklahoma. Photo \/ Supplied by Iona College <\/p>\n
Both twins say the lure of the silver fern remains the long-term dream, where they might race alongside each other again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to race for New Zealand one day,\u201d Megan says. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see us racing against each other, given that the US will allow you to trial for your home country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarah isn\u2019t the only Hawke\u2019s Bay rower chasing black singlets overseas next year.<\/p>\n
From the same school and rowing club, Aishling White is also preparing for her own chapter in the United States.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old has accepted a full-ride scholarship to Eastern Michigan University, where she will study finance and economics while rowing Division 1.<\/p>\n
She received scholarship offers from Kansas University, the University of Sacramento in California, and Eastern Michigan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was overwhelming and exciting,\u201d White said of the offers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI visited the universities, and they were all phenomenal, but Michigan just felt like the right place. It was one of those things that when you know, you just know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aishling White at Eastern Michigan University, where she will study finance and economics while rowing Division 1. Photo \/ Supplied by Iona College<\/p>\n
White will move in August 2026 and plans to keep training through next year to arrive ready to compete. Her long-term goal mirrors the Ritchie sisters\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepresenting New Zealand would mean everything,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Michigan, they can help me to get faster, and then, potentially, if I\u2019m at that level, I would love to be offered a trial and come back to wear the fern and represent New Zealand.\u201d <\/p>\n
Rower Caterina Carney is also heading to the United States on a scholarship in 2026, according to Hawke\u2019s Bay Rowing Club.<\/p>\n
Although from Hawke\u2019s Bay, Carney completed year 13 at Waikato Diocesan School for Girls, in Hamilton. She has represented New Zealand in the under-19 team, among other achievements. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sisters have spent the past five years sharing the same boat as members of their school team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,1561,10704,9828,1976,111,139,69,8617,102260,29417,85479,213,1847,3040],"class_list":["post-180872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-bay","tag-choose","tag-different","tag-hawkes","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-offers","tag-paths","tag-rowers","tag-scholarship","tag-sports","tag-twin","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}