The injection of a world-class group of Germans, plus the spur of turning in eye-catching performances ahead of the national trials should help produce a quality New Zealand rowing championship regatta, starting at Lake Karapiro today.
The Germans, including their world champion crews, the lightweight four - who will race
in the premier straight four this week - and double scullers Eric Knittel and Stephan Krueger, along with colourful single sculler Marcel Hacker, are here partly to check the course and facilities ahead of the world champs in October-November.
And for the New Zealand athletes, who will be racing in their regional performance centre colours, there is the lure of winning selection for this year's World Cup campaign, which in turn leads to the world champs on their own water.
The premier single scull alone will have a host of top-quality racers, led by four-time world champion Mahe Drysdale, along with Hacker, one of his toughest rivals in the second half of the decade, and other leading New Zealanders, with world titles or Olympic medals to their name, including Peter Taylor, Storm Uru, Nathan Cohen, Joseph Sullivan and Nathan Twaddle.
At the end of the championships, the national selectors will name their triallists for the final assessment, from February 27-March 5, after which the elite squad is named.
There will be a small contingent heading for the first World Cup regatta in Bled, Slovenia in May, with an eye on assessing the facilities for next year's world championships.
New Zealand will attend the second and third World Cup regattas at Munich and Lucerne, contest the Henley regatta, and spend a couple of weeks training on the Dorney Lake course, which will host the 2012 London Olympic regatta.
The national under-23 squad will be named at the same time, which culminates in the world championships in Brest, Belarus in July.
The double scull event should be a treat this week. Auckland RPC have Drysdale and Taylor; Central, Sullivan and Robert Manson, who won the world under 23 title last year; Southern, Cohen and Matthew Trott, fourth at last year's worlds; and Knittel and Krueger.
