Rowing: Silver cup has rowers in its thrall

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

The Maadi Cup, the Holy Grail of New Zealand rowing, has a mysterious, magnetic pull.

It was simply too powerful for five girls from Central Otago.

The budding rowers were told by their school, Dunstan High, that they were not going to the national schools rowing championships on Lake Karapiro because they were not medal prospects.

The girls were downhearted, until one of their parents decided he would fly them there himself. Quinton Meyer packed the four rowers and their coxswain into his six-seater Cessna and flew them from Alexandra all the way to Hamilton.

"It was a rough ride up - three of them were sick the whole way," he said. "They aren't world-beaters, but they deserved to be part of the buzz of this regatta."

The Maadi Cup is an institution in New Zealand sport. Everyone knows someone who has battled for it. Grown men who long ago rowed in pursuit of the prize say there is something mystical about it.

Yet the cup is an almost insignificant piece of silverware, no bigger than a generous coffee mug. And it is the prize for just one race - the boys' eight.

Noel Lynch, who has fought for it for more than 40 years at different schools around the country, struggles to explain why the fascination with a boys' rowing race does not die.

"People go rabid about it," the stalwart coach laughed. "People keep reliving their past. Everyone knows someone who has tried to win it."

The cup's tale began during the Second World War, when New Zealand soldiers arrived at Maadi Camp in Egypt and went searching for somewhere to go rowing. They joined the Cairo River Club and raced out on the Nile.

Egypt's rowing champion, Dr Youssef Bahgat, gave one of his trophies to the New Zealanders as a token of friendship and now the little silver cup is the most famous prize in school sport in this country.

Wanganui Collegiate holds the record for the most Maadi Cup victories - 15 since it was first contested in 1947. Last year, the school claimed the cup back after a 13-year drought.

The cox of the winning crew was Jeffcoat Dickie - a boy whose surname was already etched in Maadi Cup history. His father, Roger, won the cup in 1962, under the tutelage of Mr Lynch at New Plymouth Boys High. Legend has it that the rivalry between Roger and his younger brother Simon was so strong that Simon moved to Wanganui Collegiate to row there.

Simon Dickie went on to win four Maadi medals and coxed the New Zealand eight to Olympic gold in 1972. His nephew, Jeffcoat, is back at Karapiro this year and his Wanganui crew are favourites to win the eight for the second year in a row, although they are up against strong rowing schools such as Christ's College, Auckland Grammar and King's College.

Mr Lynch, back with a new crop of rowers from Wellington College, has coached school rowing crews since 1956.

"I have to tell you girls learn to row much quicker than boys," the 76-year-old said. "Guys are massively 'un-co' [uncoordinated], you know.

"When they first start rowing, girls will whop the boys every time.

"I said I wouldn't retire until there was a girls' race for every boys' race. Now they have."

But he has no intention of retiring. He hopes to put together an eight next year for another crack at the Maadi.

Yet it is a girls' event that has the most entries at Lake Karapiro - 61 crews lined up for the under-16 doubles.

The prize for the girls' eight is the Levin Cup, and for the past 10 years no crew has got near Christchurch's Rangi Ruru College. Until this year.

Coached by 1972 Olympic gold medallist Gary Robertson, Rangi Ruru faces a strong challenge from its neighbouring girls' school, St Margaret's.

"There's a lot of pressure on our girls to carry on the tradition," Mr Robertson said. "It only takes someone in the street to politely ask, 'How's the rowing going?' to set it all off,"

By the way, Dunstan High's under-19 coxed four crew - Kathrin Guggenmos, Emma Meyer, Olivia Wildey, Natalie Mulvey and Sara Attfield - made it to the semifinals, but in the whippy winds and choppy water yesterday they finished sixth of six. They still reckon the bumpy plane ride was worth it.