Rowing: Bay girls on target for junior world champs

As Hawke's Bay rowers Ashlea Quirk and Hannah Bailey sat at the starting blocks prior to their under-19 double final at the recent national championships Napier Girls' High School's Quirk fired the pair up with a motivational message.

"I said to Hannah, Germany here we come and here comes another winner's shirt," Quirk recalled shortly after returning from another training session at the Clive River.

The message worked. They won their final and both added another winner's shirt to their collection. They will hear at the end of this month whether they have earned a trial for the New Zealand team to attend the August Junior World Championships in Germany.

Recent form suggests they are on target. In addition to their Lake Karapiro-hosted national championship gold medal they also collected silver in the women's senior pair.

A fortnight earlier, at the North Island championships, Bailey and Quirk won three golds, one in the women's senior quad with Kate Daulton and Laura Coventry, one in the senior pair and one in the under-19 double.

"If I can continue this form until the Maadi Cup regatta in Twizel at the end of the month I will have a good chance of a trial," Year 13 student Quirk said.

She will race in the under-18 singles in Twizel. What made Bailey and Quirk's national championship medals such a significant feat was the fact the pair had only trained together four times before the nationals.

"We have been in the quad together for a couple of seasons. We've got exactly the same power and strength which helps as well as the same technique ... we've both been brought up rowing," explained Quirk, who is in her fourth season of rowing.

She said the Rohan Condon-coached pair were rapt with their silver at the nationals as they were up against adults and the pair who beat them had represented New Zealand at the world under-23 championships. Quirk, who is eyeing a police career when she leaves school, added their success reflected their intense training schedule.

She trains for an hour every morning before school and 90 minutes after school.

Former Woodford House student Bailey, who won the female award at the 2013 Hawke's Bay Secondary Schools Sports awards, is now at Otago University and has started a four-year applied sciences course. She was a member of the New Zealand quad which finished fifth at last year's junior worlds in the Ukraine.

Despite having already been to the worlds she isn't considering selection for Germany as a given.

"It's a pretty competitive field this year," Bailey said.

A multiple national champion, Bailey, regards all her medals as "pretty special" but said the women's senior pair medals at both the nationals and North Island champs held special significance as they were her first medals with sweep oars.

Bailey believed she was always going to combine well with Quirk as Quirk sits behind her in the quad.

"Our partnership within the quad helped us when we combined as a pair."

The Hawke's Bay club's medal winners from the recent North Island and national championships:

North Island: Women's novice double (Kelsei Parker & Tiffany Dixon) bronze; Women's senior quad (Hannah Bailey, Ashlea Quirk, Kate Daulton & Laura Coventry) gold; Women's senior pair (Bailey & Quirk) gold; Women's under-19 double (Bailey & Quirk) gold; Men's Single Adaptive Rower (Gavin Foulsham) silver.

Nationals: Women's senior pair (Bailey & Quirk) silver; Women's under-19 double (Bailey & Quirk) gold; Men's Single Adaptive Rower (Foulsham) gold; Men's under-20 four (Edwin Laver, Liam & Matthew Kitchin & Pat Nicol) bronze; Men's senior eight (Tom Jenkins, Max Williams, Liam, Matthew & Luke Kitchin, Jeff Haldane, Alex Wilson & George Sproat and Peter Holt (cox) gold.