Brott wins gold, Aussies retain trophy

FAB FOUR: The New Zealand under-21 quads crew won gold in the second of two regattas against Australia. The Kiwis are (from left): TK McLaren-Taplin, Nathan Luff, Jordan Gasson and James Brott. Picture by Steve McArthur

Gisborne's James Brott brought the curtain down on his national under-21 career with two gold medals in the annual transtasman regatta.

But it wasn’t enough to stop Australia from retaining The Rusty Robinson Trophy.

Twenty-year-old Brott, studying for a civil engineering degree at Waikato University, was competing for New Zealand for the second time in this event.

He and Jordan Gasson, from Marlborough but also living in Waikato, won gold in the lightweight double sculls at Penrith, in the first of two regattas.

Brott and Gasson, along with Nathan Luff and TK McLaren-Taplin, were just beaten into second place in the quads, with about two seconds separating first and second.

In the return regatta at Lake Karapiro, Brott was in the quads crew that won gold.

Brott and Gasson had booked their places in the New Zealand team after impressive performances in trials.

“After the trials, we trained at the Waikato Regional Performance Centre (WRPC) to prepare for the two regattas,” Brott said.

“Two weeks before we flew out to Australia for the first regatta, we moved into the Rowing New Zealand high-performance centre at Karapiro.

“The whole squad — doubles, quads, fours and eights — came together.”

Brott, who was bowman in the doubles and quads, was in Seat 7 in the eights.

The first regatta at Penrith was raced at the former Olympic course.

“The water is slower than Karapiro but the competition was still fierce,” said Brott, who won gold in the mixed doubles last year.

“The eights had extremely bad conditions, with the wind blowing up in the last day of racing.

“All the boys struggled and the Australians took the gold.”

At the end of the regatta, Australia held a two-point lead.

At Karapiro for the return regatta, the windy conditions were “unrowable” around 6am but died down enough for racing to go ahead, Brott said.

In the double scull heat, he and Gasson beat the Australians and the Canadians, who had a small team entered, in rough conditions.

However, the wind died down in the afternoon and in flat conditions the Canadians were well ahead.

Brott said the quads “played around with the seating order and, following a training camp, were faster”.

“When it came to the final, the boys knew it was time to do the job,” he said.

“We looked comfortable leading most of the middle one kilometre but in the last 500 metres of the 2km race the Australians started to fight back, inching closer and closer.”

Sensing they had won Brott and the rest of the crew celebrated, before “quickly stopping”.

“We asked the Aussies if they knew who actually won but they didn’t.

“When we pulled into the pontoons we were told we had won with a time of 6:06.30; Australia finished in 6:06.44.

“The eights showed improvement in the last day of racing but we were still behind Australia.

“We held them for the first 200m but the rest of the 2km course proved too much against a very tidy Australian eight.

“Overall, I was happy with my performances over the two campaigns but there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

“I’m staying in Waikato over the summer, possibly working or continuing my degree.

“The goal now is to get picked for the New Zealand under-23 team at Waikato University. But first I want to make the WRPC squad, which is named on September 21.