Young rowers take on elite

More than 2100 rowers and 120 high schools will be on Lake Ruataniwha for the 2016 edition of The Maadi Cup.

Rotorua's best high school rowers will try and make a splash at the 2016 Aon Maadi Cup in Twizel this week.

The Maadi Cup, also known as the New Zealand Secondary Schools Rowing Championships, got under way yesterday and runs until Saturday on Lake Ruataniwha.

More than 2100 rowers and 120 high schools are taking part in the 2016 edition of the regatta.

Local rowing coach Chris Pearson said a group of 32 rowers from Rotorua had headed south, representing John Paul College, Western Heights High School and Rotorua Lakes High School. He said it was the biggest regatta of the year for school-aged rowers and the local crews had been training hard over the past few months.

Pearson said, unlike some high schools, they were taking pretty much every rower who had put the work in this season.

"Some schools only take crews that are guaranteed to make an A final, and some even wait until after the North Island secondary schools [held two weeks ago] before picking their teams," Pearson said. "But we tend to take pretty much everyone, as long as they have been training."

The North Island Secondary School Rowing Championships were held two weeks ago with two Rotorua crews taking home medals. The John Paul College boys' under-15 double scull and boys' under-15 coxed quad won a silver medal and bronze medal respectively, and will be looking to push for medals again at Maadi this week.

The Aon Maadi Cup regatta is the largest secondary schools sports event in New Zealand and one of the largest regattas in the Southern Hemisphere.

The rowers will take part in four age group categories U15, U16, U17 and U18 and in a range of boat classes including singles, pairs, doubles, fours, quads, eights and octuples. The Maadi Cup is the prize for the premier event, the boys' under-18 eight.