Street parade marks rowing countdown

In exactly 12 months, the oars will be cranking, the skiffs will be flying and the crowds on the shores of Lake Karapiro will be roaring as the 2010 World Rowing Championships begin.

But yesterday a small but vocal crowd cheered as some of the country's world-beating rowers paraded down Cambridge's Victoria St to mark the one-year countdown to the event.

Among the elite squad rowers present were Storm Uru and Peter Taylor, the world champions in the lightweight double sculls after their recent victory in Poznan, Poland.

Uru said the rowing squads' excitement was building and they expected to have an edge through racing on their "home track" at Karapiro.

"To have a World Champs on our doorstep, it's going to be phenomenal – everyone's out there training hard," a grinning Uru said.

Taylor said the rowers put "huge expectations on ourselves" and were keen to repeat their recent success at home.

Uru said Cambridge had adopted the out-of-town rowers: "They're all so supportive of us, and rowing in New Zealand – it's cool to be part of an atmosphere like that. It's nice to walk into a shop, and they say `g'day Storm, how's the rowing going?'."

Recent English immigrants Alistair and Hilary Brown stumbled across the parade unwittingly. "It's absolutely fantastic, we came in to town, and here's the parade," Mr Brown said.

They were looking forward to supporting English rowers.

Don Rowlands, patron of the organising committee for the champs, said that in 1978 150 rowers from 30 countries competed at Karapiro.

For the 2010 champs more than 300 competitors were expected from 60 countries.

The event included speeches by Rowing New Zealand representatives and Waipa Mayor Alan Livingstone, and footage of the 1978 World Championships and recent international rowing was shown on a video screen.