Rowing NZ promoters miss the boat

Rowing will blow an oarsome opportunity if it sticks to its conservative call to hold the Olympic Games trials behind closed doors.

Forget the Black Caps v England, the Crusaders v the Blues. The Rob Waddell-Mahe Drysdale duel is THE sporting contest of the long, hot New Zealand summer.

The saga reaches its denouement at Lake Karapiro this weekend with a winner- take-all single sculls showdown.

Rowing's rules do not allow a nation to have two competitors in Olympic events.

So one of our world-class scullers – both world champions – has to bow out in a best- of-three race duel.

The winner gets a berth in Beijing – the loser has to contemplate whether he can change tack and qualify in a crewed boat or the double scull.

Waddell, the 2000 Olympic gold medallist, has the pyschological edge after a crushing three-length victory at the nationals last week.

But Drysdale – winner of an unprecedented three consecutive world championships and twice New Zealand Sportsman of the Year – is a tough customer who has a bow wave of public support.

Rowing is riding high as New Zealand's most successful sport. Three of the five category winners at the Halberg Awards were rowers.

Three out of four finalists in the team of the year – including the coxless four who won the prize – were rowing world championship medallists.

The Waddell-Drysdale races should lead every sports page and television and radio bulletin across the nation.

Rowing New Zealand (RNZ) could have secured live television cover and opened the gates to the sporting public.

Instead, it seems hellbent on adhering to a time-honoured tradition of holding closed trials.

There was speculation yesterday that RNZ had dipped an oar in the pool of public opinion and reversed its stance.

Not so, says RNZ's high performance manager Andrew Matheson. He told The Press that its plans had not changed and that it wanted to spare the rowers the glare of media attention during the week-long trials. That strategy has been in place for two months, he insisted.

Some of the recent media coverage had been "bordering on disrespectful" and most people did not understand "how much pressure is on these athletes". The trials, he said, would "make or break their life's dream".

The kid-glove approach would be understandable if its Olympic aspirants were teenage rookies. But Waddell and Drysdale are old hands, seasoned competitors accustomed to racing against the best scullers in the world.

You could argue that the public – and press – had its chance to see the dynamic duo in action at the nationals. But that was only the entree. The trials are the main course where one of the men will get his rich desserts.

Rowing has had its salad days before – notably in 1972 when Rusty Robertson's eight won Olympic gold, in Sydney, 2000, when Waddell blitzed all- comers and that golden day in Gifu, Japan in 2005 when Kiwis won four gold medals.

But there hasn't been this level of interest in a mano-a- mano clash for 86 years when two Kiwis, Darcy Hadfield and Dick Arnst, squared off in 1922 for the world professional title on the Whanganui River.

Hadfield, the 1920 Olympic bronze medallist, grew up in Golden Bay and regularly rowed a clinker dinghy 56km across Tasman Bay for a day out in Nelson. He was a tough rooster who survived shrapnel wounds to his head in the World War 1 trenches.

Christchurch-born Arnst was as successful an all-round sportsman as Waddell, who dabbled in representative rugby before becoming a grinder on Team New Zealand in two America's Cup campaigns.

A champion cyclist, Arnst won the Timaru to Christchurch road race and two major contests across the Tasman – one worth 1000 (a king's ransom in 1906).

Arnst turned to sculling, winning the world title in 1908 at Wanganui and defending it at Akaroa and on the Zambesi River in Africa.

He lost his crown in 1912 on the Thames River, but regained it nine years later.

Hadfield quit the amateur ranks after his podium finish at the Olympics and there was heightened anticipation – and hype – around his long- awaited challenge to Arnst.

In the end it was an anti- climax. A whitewash rather than a white-water classic. Hadfield, 32, whipped Arnst, 38, by 10 lengths to win 200 as a side bet.

But the clash drew 12,000 spectators to the Whanganui River banks.

Rowing New Zealand could have attracted as many to the Waddell-Drysdale show this weekend if it wasn't so bloody- minded about its closed-doors policy.

Many so-called "minor" sports bleat that rugby, cricket and netball have a mortgage on media interest in this country. They generally welcome reporters with open arms.

It seems odd then that rowing would shut out the media and public at a time when its sport is most marketable.

- © Fairfax NZ News