Rowing: NZ rowers look to raise medal tally

New Zealand men's pair Eric Murray and Hamish Bond will look to defend their title this week. Photo / Christine Cornege

As a starting point, last year's haul of four golds and a bronze at the world rowing championships in Poland looks pretty good to Rowing New Zealand high performance manager Alan Cotter.

A 55-strong home team will contest this year's championships, beginning on Sunday at Lake Karapiro, near Hamilton.

And although Cotter has realistic long-term expectations for much of the team - centred on the London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics - surpassing last year's haul from Poland is also a prime objective.

He is well aware, however, that to do so will require a real lift in performance.

"Sure, we got a good result in Poznan last year and that was a good start to the Olympic cycle, but it gets harder each year," he told NZPA today.

"But the other countries are developing as well, so things get fairly competitive."

Single sculler Mahe Drysdale, men's pair Eric Murray and Hamish Bond, lightweight single sculler Duncan Grant and the lightweight double of Storm Uru and Peter Taylor will all defend titles this week.

The women's pair, Emma Feathery and Rebecca Scown, picked up a bronze in Poland. Scown combines with Juliette Haigh this time round, while Feathery and Fiona Paterson take on a new challenge in the double scull.

"We got five medals last year, so that's where we'd like to start," Cotter said. "And now we've got crews in other Olympic events - of the 14 Olympic events, we've got 13 crews out there.

"Our main focus is through to London. Next year is qualifying year, at the world champs in Bled in Slovenia, so we want to try and be in the hunt in developing the other Olympic boats."

To that end, some young crews will come under the hammer over the next week -- the men's quad, and men's and women's eights - as RNZ looks to test their developing rowers in a jump up from under-23 level.

A relatively young women's group, based around rowers that have come through RNZ's junior programme and the eight that got second at the recent under-23 world championships, also shows promise for 2016, Cotter said.

The numbers coming through illustrate the growing strength in New Zealand rowing, he said, giving much of the credit to the centralised programme at Lake Karapiro.

"We have all the juniors, the under-23 and the elite teams training there during the winter, with support from Sparc and the Academy of Sport.

"We've got a good group of 10 coaches here, and they all work together as a team - they really support one another."

Cotter defines his role over the next eight days as continuing to provide that support for the team as a whole.

"It's about making sure everything's squeaky clean, and there's no stress in the whole thing.

"We've been trying to think ahead and make sure there's no stumbling blocks along the way," he said.

"It's all about preparation -- certainly a lot of planning's gone on, and everyone's had a hand in that. We're working the plan now, and we can't wait for racing to start."

- NZPA