Lessons in defeat

International duty: James Brott competing against Australia at Lake Karapiro last year. Picture by Steve McArthur

GISBORNE rower James Brott and his New Zealand under-21 teammates couldn’t prevent Australia from retaining the Rusty Robertson Trophy on Lake Karapiro at the weekend.

But Brott and the Kiwis did not go down without a fight in the second of two transtasman regattas.

“We lost the first regatta in Penrith on the former Olympic course in May and knew we had to improve our starts to have any chance of winning the second regatta,” said the 19-year-old, who is in the first year of an engineering degree at Wakato University.

“The Aussies were consistently faster than us in this area and while we learned a lot from the Aussie regatta it wasn’t quite enough to take out the series. But we definitely improved and learned a lot from both regattas.”

Brott, who won gold, silver and bronze medals at the North Island championships in January, played his part at Karapiro with a second placing in the lightweight singles sculls

“I won my heat but lost the final, which was disappointing. I’m still adapting to international racing but learnt a lot about my mental game, which helped me for the rest of the regatta.

Brott combined with Westlake Girls’ High student Sophie Egnot-Johnson — who won both races in the lightweight women’s single sculls — to claim gold in the mixed lightweight double sculls.

“We won our heat then went faster in the final.”

Brott, who rows for Hawke’s Bay Rowing Club, and Egnot-Johnson then joined forces with two members of the Australia reserve crew to win bronze in the under-21 coxless quadruple sculls, — beating the Australian women’s eights.

“We had a good start. We came though the 500m slightly down on the Aussies, then Sophie made a call to relax and we both responded.

“At the 1000m mark we were next to the Aussies. At 1500m we were slightly ahead. At 1700m Sophie and I pushed the legs down harder, rating lower than the Australians but pulling away to cross the line ahead of them.”

The New Zealand men’s and women’s eights finished their regatta on a high with consecutive wins in the finals.

The women won by 9secs while the men held on to win by 0.3 of a second — a remarkable performance after finishing 5secs behind in the heat.

The Kiwi women won the coxless pairs and fours.

Brott said he had learned a lot about himself, which “I can put forward to other regattas at club level later this year”.

“Meanwhile, I’ll continue studying at uni, then head back to the Hawke’s Bay club for the next season. I’m aiming to re trial for the u21 NZ team next year.”