Emma Twigg hoisted victoriously after her first World Rowing Beach Sprint title on the Turkish Mediterranean coast on November 9. She competes on Saturday at the annual New Year Regatta of the Hawke's Bay Rowing Club, where she is the patron.
Emma Twigg hoisted victoriously after her first World Rowing Beach Sprint title on the Turkish Mediterranean coast on November 9. She competes on Saturday at the annual New Year Regatta of the Hawke's Bay Rowing Club, where she is the patron.
Rowing legend Emma Twigg will return to Hawke’s Bay as her club starts its 150th year celebrations during its annual New Year Regatta on Te Awa o Mokotūāraro at Clive on Saturday and Sunday.
The Cambridge-based four-times Hawke’s Bay Sports Awards Supreme Award winner, and Hawke’s Bay Rowing Club patron,confirmed to Hawke’s Bay Today on Tuesday she will be in the Bay for both days of the regatta.
A feature will be getting together in a boat with the rest of the quadruple sculls crew she was with way back in her second season, including Carina Lack (nee Burgess), now the club president.
A teenaged Emma Twigg (second from left) with an Hawke's Bay Rowing Club Under 21 crew on the river at Clive in 2002, on her way to becoming an Olympic Games and World champion, and club patron. At left is Carina Burgess, now Carina Lack, the club captain. Photo / NZME.
She’s also expecting to take part in a demonstration of a coastal boat of the type with which she’s now becoming more familiar as she strives for the next goal, although, she said: “I’m being told what I’m going to be doing, but it should be good fun.”
It comes seven weeks after she celebrated success in that new venture, a World Rowing Beach Sprint title, scored on November 6-9 at Sorgun Camici beach, Antalya, on the Turkish Mediterranean coast.
That was a test of the potential for a second Olympic Games gold medal for Twigg, with beach rowing included for the first time at the Los Angeles games in 2028.
On the flat water she won the women’s single sculls gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and the silver as runner-up defending the title in France last year.
At the World Rowing Championships she won the gold medal in Amsterdam in 2014, and has been runner-up four times.
In Tokyo in 2021 and reaching the dream of an Olympic Games gold medal. This weekend she returns to her Hawke's Bay Rowing Club for it's New Year Regatta. Photo / Steve McArthur, www.photosport.nz
Unlike traditional flat-water rowing, the beach sprint format starts with a 50-metre beach sprint, followed by a 250-metre slalom-style row in coastal boats, and ends with a final dash up the sand to the finish line.
The two Olympic classes included for LA will be a mixed double scull (M2x) and the men’s and women’s solo (CM1x & CW1x) events.
As well as her rowing skills, she reckons she was able to draw a little on her experience as a “nipper” at the Westshore Surf Lifesaving Club.
It’s not the first time she’s tried something new, having in September last year formed a crew in the club name, with fellow club member Bibi Colgan, double sculls Olympic gold medallists Brooke Francis and Lucy Spoors and London-based Dutch coxswain Jonna De Vries to finish third on a 4km course in the World Coastal Rowing Championships off Genoa, Italy.
About 150 rowers and scullers are expected at Clive at the weekend, for a programme based around the standard regatta events, from Novice to Masters, involving at least four clubs.
But to kick the 150th anniversary off, the club is encouraging all past club competitors for the “Has-Beens” events, with competitors possibly aged into the 70s.
Racing starts at 2pm on Saturday, with a break at 5-5.30pm, including the Has-Been racing, and the day’s programme will close about 8pm. Sunday racing starts at 8am and finishes soon after midday.
The club, which stages its full anniversary celebrations on April 17-19, has been to two regattas this season, both on Lake Karapiro.
There were promising results in the Christmas Regatta on December 11, including A-final wins for the women’s Novice coxed quadruple sculls and the men’s novice double sculls.
The North Island championships on January 23-25 and the national championships on February 18-21 are both on Lake Karapiro, and the Maadi Cup secondary schools championships are on Lake Ruataniwha, Twizel, on March 26-28.
Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter, based in Napier with more than 50 years’ experience in the new industry, including covering sports at local, national and international level.
