NZ greats up for rowing's most prestigious award

Olympic and world rowing champion Rob Waddell. Photo / NZ Herald

Three of New Zealand's finest sports people are on a short list to win rowing's most prestigious award.

Single sculling Olympic champion Rob Waddell and two-time Olympic gold medallists Caroline Meyer and Georgina Earl are among six nominees for the Thomas Keller Medal.

The medal, which was first awarded in 1990, celebrates rowers who have had an outstanding career in the sport, shown exemplary sportsmanship and technical mastery of the sport.

Waddell, who was chef de mission for New Zealand's team at last year's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and will be in charge of the team for the Rio Olympics next year, won the Olympic single sculls gold at Sydney in 2000, having won world championship titles in each of the previous two years.

Twins Meyer and Earl, formerly Evers-Swindell, won back-to-back double sculling gold medals at Athens in 2004 and Beijing four years later. Their Beijing achievement was the first time that title had been successfully defended at the Olympics.

They also won world double sculling titles in 2002, 2003 and 2005. They retired after their Beijing victory.

The other shortlisted rowers include American Caryn Davies, who was a two-time Olympic champion and four-time world champion between 2002 and 2012 and stroked Oxford to win the annual women's Boat Race against Cambridge University this month.

The others on the list are Briton Greg Searle, a two-time Olympic champion and five-time world champion; Iztok Cop was the first Olympic medallist for the newly-independent Slovenia at the Barcelona Games of 1992 and bagged another in 2000 with Luka Spik in the double scull and four of his 12 world championship medals were gold; and Italian Rossano Galtarossa, a four-time world champion and four-time Olympic medallist.

No New Zealander has won the medal. Last year's winner was Australian rowing legend Drew Ginn.

The winner will be named in July at the third World Cup regatta in Lucerne, and will receive an 18-carat gold medal.