Glory days

Is NZ rowing on the verge of another golden era?

Rob Waddell's improbable comeback at Lake Karapiro on Sunday has set the stage for rowing to dominate headlines next year and for him to create a rivalry with Mahe Drysdale mirroring that of two heavyweight boxers.

New Zealand's rowing community has been abuzz since Waddell's four-second win against three-time world champion Drysdale.

Waddell's time was just 3s off Drysdale's world record pace, coming in his first competitive race since winning Olympic gold at Sydney in 2000.

Waddell's comeback story has caught the eye globally, his feats leading World Rowing's website's content all week.

Rowing New Zealand (RNZ) has been reluctant to be drawn on its growing selection dilemma, having to pick one of the two giant oarsmen for the Beijing Olympics next year, while Waddell has also kept quiet, aside from declaring his wish to compete at Beijing.

Olympic selection trials are scheduled for March, with one of the single scullers, notoriously single-minded beasts, facing the unusual prospect of having to join a crew.

DUDLEY STOREY, who won Olympic gold in the coxed four at the Mexico Olympics in 1968 and silver four years later in Munich, compared it to the great rivalry of boxers Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

He said RNZ should embrace the contest and hype up a one-off race to determine who rows solo in Beijing.

"It's scary isn't it, when you've got an Olympic and a world champion in your own backyard and they're all fighting it out. It makes you realise how damn good they are," Storey said.

"With people overseas, you say `oh well they're overseas' but here it's all of a sudden in your own backyard and people realise just how good they are.

"I think it's just fantastic, for sport generally and for the sport in New Zealand, to actually think that we've got these people here."

Storey said Waddell or Drysdale would be swallowing some serious pride in hopping into a four or an eight but it would still be possible to make a successful transition.

"Once you become part of a crew it becomes a different mindset and it's a totally different approach as well," he said.

"You have to be aware that you can't go kicking your mates in the shins, or until their nose bleeds and expect them to perform well for you on the day.

"Nothing's impossible but because their mind is so focused on the individual side of the thing, they don't really care about you and me, I can tell you that for sure.

"They don't care what you and I think and they don't care about what you and I do. They're only interested in themselves right now and that's the way it's got to be - that's the singular side of sport."

PHILIPPA BAKER-HOGAN knows just what Waddell and Drysdale are going through having spent the late 1980s and early 1990s battling Brenda Lawson in the single sculls.

Baker-Hogan says the Waddell-Drysdale rivalry is a boon for the sport and has the potential to lift its popularity to levels not seen in nearly a century.

"It's fantastic. I was not at Karapiro at the weekend, but to hear thousands of people were lining the banks made me think back to how people describe Billy Webb in the professional rowing days, back in the early 1900s on the Wanganui River and I just thought, wow!"

Webb began a tradition of great New Zealand single scullers when he won the world championships in 1907.

"I have never seen that sort of hype and as much as it's hype and Waddell and Drysdale aren't asking for it, it is great for the sport as a whole and the country."

Baker-Hogan believes Drysdale had a point when he raised the issue of burnout, having to peak both for trials and the Olympics, but said in the end the tougher the training, the better the end product.

"It's damn hard week by week to go out and have to race races that hard, but it's raised by that," she said.

"For me there has been a bit of a lull in the competition [since the mid 1980s].

"It doesn't matter if you have one or two people or crews of people, it's just having that absolute intensity of racing.

"That whole final was a world-class race the other week. The others are [getting overshadowed] and that's tough, but it's great for the sport and their standard of racing."

Baker-Hogan said being part of such an intense one-on-one rivalry could make it tough for whichever rower ended up in a bigger boat.

"It's very hard on Mahe, a triple world champion and with questions over whether he will be in the Olympics. But he seems to be handling it extremely well."

Baker-Hogan started her career in the lightweight single, winning the first of her three world championship titles in 1991.

She then switched her focus to the double sculls, teaming up with Lawson to win two further world championships in 1994 and 1995 as well as competing at the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992, and Atlanta in 1996.

"It's about combinations. It's not necessarily the best two guys. Drysdale and Waddell, put them in the double and nobody will get near them ... it doesn't work that way," she said.

GOLDEN TIMES:

New Zealand's Olympic Games rowing gold medallists 1968 Mexico City: Men's coxed four (Dudley Storey, Warren Cole, Ross Collinge, Simon Dickie, Dick Joyce) 1972 Munich: Men's eight (Trevor Coker, Simon Dickie, Athol Earl, John Hunter, Tony Hurt, Dick Joyce, Gary Robertson, Wybo Veldman, Lindsay Wilson) 1984 Los Angeles: Men's coxless four: (Shane O'Brien, Les O'Connell, Conrad Robertson, Keith Trask) 2000 Sydney: Men's single sculls (Rob Waddell) 2004 Athens: Women's double sculls: (Caroline Evers-Swindell and Georgina Evers-Swindell)

 

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