Pupils breakfast with rowing's champions

You have to do the hard yards if you want to succeed.

That was the message world champion rowers Mahe Drysdale and Duncan Grant passed on to a group of Marlborough Boys' College and Marlborough Girls' College students who joined them for breakfast at the Wairau Rowing Club yesterday.

With seven world titles between them, the pair certainly know what it takes to get to the top – hard work, determination and the ability to overcome adversity.

Rowing is renowned for its rigorous early-morning training regimes and both rowers admitted they did not always enjoy it, but sticking with it was the key to producing their best.

Both have had their ups and downs in their remarkable careers – Drysdale breaking two vertebrae in a crash with a water skier in 2005 and Grant twice missing out on shots in Olympic crews due to injury.

"I hope I put across that anything is possible if you want it enough and are willing to work for it," Drysdale said.

"If you want something, a lot of hard work has to go in before it will happen."

Drysdale, who took up rowing only as an 18-year-old, said having a strong support crew and coaches was also important to him and had helped him stick at it when the going got tough. Last year's Olympics, when he was the hot favourite to win gold but was stricken by illness and eventually took home the bronze medal, was one of those tough times.

However, Drysdale said that disappointment was now his motivation.

"You always have setbacks and I've had a few. The Olympics was one for me.

"The important thing, though, is that you take those setbacks and use them to improve. It made me realise I wasn't going as well as I thought I could and I needed to get better."

Since deciding to continue rowing in January, Drysdale has gone through the international single sculls season unbeaten, knocked two seconds off his previous world best time and won a fourth world single sculls crown.

However, his main motivation is London 2012 and he has his sights firmly set on the gold medal he missed out on in Beijing.

"I didn't come back for just a year. The next Olympics is the aim. That's what I decided when I came back in January. The Olympics is the pinnacle of our sport and that's where I want to get to and perform."

- The Marlborough Express