New Zealand men's eight after winning gold. Photo / Photosport
New Zealand men's eight after winning gold. Photo / Photosport
Last-minute qualification and stays in managed isolation formed a unique formula to aid the New Zealand men's rowing eight in achieving extraordinary success on the water at the Tokyo Olympics.
One of the country's seven gold medals came courtesy of the men's octad in the prestigious race, where the Kiwis– having qualified for the A final via a repechage – stormed ahead to take the lead at the halfway point, and extended their advantage en route to victory ahead of the more favoured German and British boats.
It completed a golden hour for New Zealand rowing after Emma Twigg won gold in the single sculls and the women's eight won silver, and will likely be viewed as one of the greatest days in the country's 101-year Olympic history.
It was only the second time New Zealand had won the blue riband event, replicating the result at the 1972 Munich Games where the likes of Tony Hurt, Wybo Veldman and Athol Earl powered New Zealand to gold.
New Zealand men's eight after winning gold. Photo / Photosport
But it was far from smooth stroking for this year's eight to get to the Olympics. They were tasked to qualify through the commonly dubbed 'regatta of death' in Lucerne, Switzerland in May which itself was delayed a year due to Covid-19.
24-year-old Tom Mackintosh sat in the bow seat and admits it was frustrating having to travel to Lucerne, which kicked off a busy two months for them.
"To come from New Zealand – a Covid safe haven – and then having to go overseas to a few Covid hot spots, race and come back and spend two weeks in MIQ, it was just a lot of rigmarole, a lot of processes to go through to actually race - and it takes away from critical training time," he told the Herald.
"What the regatta of death gave us was as a crew we travelled to Switzerland, we raced, we won two races, we qualified for the Olympic Games and then we came back. No one got Covid and everyone performed very well in the crew, and in doing that it gave us a great bond and an element of trust within each other that we can perform in a high-stress environment and we can perform when it counts, and you can't really simulate those situations in training.
"As much as you try it's just impossible – you can't simulate travelling overseas in a Covid pandemic. We bonded really well from that and I think that gave us a critical edge going into Tokyo."
New Zealand rower and Olympic gold medallist Tom Mackintosh, pictured in 2019. Photo / Photosport
Following that trip the team spent two weeks in managed isolation in Christchurch - similarly, a seemingly undesirable situation that ended up contributing vitally to their gold medal hopes.
"We didn't really want to sit in a hotel room for two weeks and spend hundreds of kilometres on the rowing machine. But we kind of just reframed it and changed our perspective and turned it into a training camp.
"We did just eat, sleep, row, repeat. The Commodore Hotel in Christchurch was exceptional with their catering, they sent up extra portions of food which was really good for us, we would consume anywhere between three to five thousand calories a day. The great thing about that was although we didn't really want to do it, everyone came up fitter, better, faster, stronger from it and that just showed each team member that we're willing to do what it takes and we're willing to do what we can for the team to make sure our boats are in the best possible position come Tokyo."
Mackintosh adds while they knew they were more than capable of winning the gold medal, the result did surprise them somewhat.
"I knew, man for man if you compared us to other crews, we definitely had a shot at winning the gold. The morning of, if we had a good race we thought we might be in contention for the medals," he says.
"We went out and just committed, executed our race plan when it counted. We managed to get ahead of Germany and GB [Great Britain]. It was reasonably unsuspecting for them and so that might've thrown them off a wee bit and we capitalised on that chance and just kept pushing through. I was a wee bit surprised but also I knew we definitely had it in us."
Mackintosh's trophy cabinet now has a rainbow of medal colours, with his gold joining a silver and two bronze medals he's won across the under 23 and junior world championships.
