Rowing: Bug isolates rowers at champs

Dick Tonks

Rowing officials have locked down New Zealand's squad as they battle a bug which has threatened to derail their world championship campaign starting in England on Sunday.

A bug swept through the 38-strong group affecting 50 per cent of the rowers and coaching staff, and last night team manager John Howard said fingers were crossed that the worst was over.

But friends and family arriving in England to support the rowers in their bid for gold are being told to stay away.

"We've had to put a restriction on them coming to our boat park and our hotel," Howard said.

"We just can't afford for people to come over here and bring bugs, which you do get on planes. Because some of the athletes' immune systems are quite low unfortunately we've had to say, 'sorry you can't come'."

Some athletes have been isolated and kept apart from crewmates.

The bug was picked up in Belgium several days ago during the squad's world championship preparation, and many have had bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea since arriving in England three days ago.

"We've got the athletes' interests in mind and I'm sure when people turn up here they'll understand. We've spent too much time getting them to this stage to have them upset again," Howard added.

New Zealand, who set the rowing world alight with four gold medals in Japan last year, begin the competition in the opening heats on Sunday night (NZT) on the Eton course.

Howard said they were getting the best possible medical care.

"This is a setback we obviously don't want. But they're professional athletes, we've got professional people looking after them and they'll be in the best physical shape come raceday." The illness is the latest setback to have dogged the campaign through Europe. Head coach Dick Tonks said it had been the most awkward he had experienced in many years of working with national squads overseas.

When they arrived in Poland at the start, their luggage went missing for the first 24 hours, then they had a vehicle stolen from outside their hotel; then coxless four coach Chris Nilsson crashed off his bike riding beside the course watching his crew train and needed stitches in his head.

In Lucerne for their second World Cup regatta, eight athletes lost cameras, money, credit cards and other equipment to burglars while they were at the hotel restaurant.

And on the water, world and Olympic double scull champions Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell are on their third boat after twice having accidents, once when a Polish rower came up the course the wrong way and collided with them, and again when they struck some equipment on the lake at Racice in the Czech Republic during their training camp.

New Zealand will contest eight events and all the gold medallists from Japan are back: Mahe Drysdale, the Evers-Swindells, Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater, Juliette Haigh and Nicky Coles.