1. What inspired you to go to your first rowing practice; was there anything memorable about it?
A friend of mine told me we should give it a go, and so we went down to the local club and started off. I thought it would be a good summer sport to keep me fit for rugby. It was good to start and then soon I started to get better at rowing than I was at rugby, so the rest is history!
Our first season we were pretty bad and I'm not sure why I kept going, I think it was to get the time off school, but I stuck at it, and started to get reasonably good at it.
The most memorable thing was being so far behind in our first race that the next race nearly caught up to us....
2. Was there a practice, race or other event when you fell in love with the sport, or when you knew you might not be too bad at rowing? When you thought you could make the national team?
I remember being a school kid at only 15 years old and we entered a club event and ended up winning and beating all the open grade intermediates, so it was pretty cool to be a kid, winning against men. In NZ, the NZ Secondary Schools championships is a massive event, and if you can win there, you know you are the best, and it was when we started to pick up medals that I knew I had the possibility to go further in the sport.
Coaches pushed me in the right direction and I had the attributes, the attitude, the perseverance, and I was tall, strong, (a bit fat and chubby), but people could see I had the potential, so they directed me in a path to go to the best club at the time to make it into the best crews possible to see how good I actually could be. I was a junior in 2000 and got hammered at the Junior Worlds, and I've been through the ranks since then. It was great development to compete a each level and make the step as I went through my career.
Loved racing at Royal Henley in London. It was always on the list "to do" and we were lucky enough to go for a couple of years in 2009, 10, and win the Silver Goblets. I would love to go back!
3. Best race/practice, worst race/practice?
I've had a ton of great races, and plenty of disappointing ones. It's hard to pick any that are winners.
Strange is another thing.... In the 2007 World Cup in Amsterdam, our bowman got shunted off our seat in the semifinal of the four. In the first 250 his drink bottle came from behind his feet, shooting into the footbay and wedging under his seat at the catch. It brought the boat to a standstill, and we had to dig real deep to get back in the race and we rowed through and won the semi in one of our fastest ever times!
Winning the World Champs in the four in 2007 is up there as a fantastic race, and also I have vivid memories of all the finals in the pair 2009,10 & 11.
Worst practice... Well if you deem that in terms of most painful, then 40x500m back to back is probably at least in my all time top three... That's back to back as in finish, paddle for a couple of strokes, turn, back on the line ready to go.... That was a killer, over 2:30 hours not knowing when it was going to end.
In NZ we don't tend to have many sprint regattas, so a favorite was going to Canadian Henley in 2001 to race the 8+ and winning the 500m sprint. That was pretty cool! We would've like to have won the 2k, but had to settle for the 500!
4. Best/Anything you've done in the sport no one knows about?
I was in a old wooden single once as a kid going to the start of a race and it was a pretty dodgy boat, and I went through some chase boat wash on the way to the start and it snapped in half and sunk... Nearly sunk fully! They fished it out and repaired it actually!
We had a random occurrence at the Eton World Champs in 2006. We dead heated for 3rd place with the USA in the M4- in the semi final... As the rules go, there is no room for a 7 lane final so the 2 crews had to go and re-race the race, within an hour of the finish! It's all in the FISA Rule Book if you want to read it, so they mucked around and held the time back and then we had to go out and do a head to head race just the two of us to decide who would go to the final. We subsequently lost the race by 0.3 seconds and so got relegated to the 'B' final. It was hard to get back up for that and got 9th overall. The USA went on to get 4th, so who knows how they would've gone if they didn't have to race another race like that! Maybe could have been amongst the medals..
5. Any/Most important advice for young rowers?
Have fun! I've always tried to have fun so rowing stays enjoyable. Yes, it is pretty hard and at this level, the commitment to do it is pretty heavy, but you still have to have fun. There will be times when it's pretty tough and you're not getting the results that you want, but stick at it and persevere. It's a great sport to not only make good rivalries but also good friends which is what I've tried to do. There are always a few beers and a good party after racing so everyone can unwind after all the hard work and effort they have put in to try and archive their goals.
Birthplace: Hawke's Bay, NZL
Current Residence: Cambridge, NZL
Club Affiliation: Avon Rowing Club, Christchurch, NZL
Date of Birth: 5/6/82
Height: 6'5"
Weight: 220
Current Coaches: Dick Tonks
Years on National Team: 12 - 2000 Junior ;2002, Under 23; 2003-12, Senior
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