Rowing: Whanganui’s Aramoho club returns from nationals with big medal haul

Gold medal winners (from left) Lauren Davies (coxswain), Jordan Hallett, Achilles Paikea, Kynan Brewer and Cristian Kiriona.

The Aramoho Whanganui club enjoyed a highly successful New Zealand Rowing Championships regatta at Lake Karapiro this month.

With every member of the small travelling squad of 18 athletes achieving a visit to the podium, the ultimate success of reaching 14 A Finals resulted in Aramoho finishing sixth in the club standings for the Centennial Oar Trophy, ahead of many of the traditional rowing clubs.

The club’s young group of novices, all still at secondary school, were the outstanding contributors to the overall performance, with the sole gold medal for Whanganui coming from the Men’s Novice Coxed Quad of Cristian Kiriona, Achilles Paikea, Kynan Brewer, Jordan Hallet and coxswain Lauren Davies.

All from Whanganui High School, the crew seized control of the race from the outset to win in a time of 6m 55s — a full seven seconds ahead of the second-placed Bay of Plenty Coast crew and Clifton in third place.

Davies said the crew had total confidence in each other and the tactic of pushing to get further in front “certainly worked”.

The same combination secured a bronze medal in the Men’s Novice Coxed Four and, given the limited time the crew have spent sweeping (as opposed to sculling), this was a great outcome.

Brewer and Paikea finished their regatta with a silver medal in the Men’s Novice Double Scull event.

The Club Novice Women also performed credibly, with Ruby Hoekstra, Edie Franks, Ruby Bullock, Agatha Doggett and Lauren Davies (coxswain) claiming silver — only 0.4s ahead of a fast-finishing crew from the Clifton Rowing Club.

They also took the bronze medal in the Women’s Novice Coxed Four.

A bronze medal was won by the Women’s Senior Coxless Quad of Robyn van Dijk, Mila Graham, Madeline Cox and Messina Su’a.

Nicky Maxim stroked the Men’s Club Coxless Quad to third place. The crew included Lawrence Harkin, Jake Newton and Eli Kuehne. In doing so, Nicky became the youngest rower in New Zealand, at 14 years, to move up to Senior Club status for next season.

The premier events at the champs were inevitably dominated by the NZ Squad members.

Aramoho Whanganui Elite rower Jackie Gowler retained the Women’s Coxless Pair title with new partner Phoebe Spoors from the Canterbury Rowing Club.

Unfortunately, an injury to Georgia Nugent-O’Leary resulted in the Aramoho Whanganui Premier Women’s Coxless Four crew having to scratch from its event, which was won by the Waikato Rowing Club.

To complete a successful week (February 12-17), club rowers Messina Su’a and Mila Graham have been invited to trial for the NZ Under 21 Women’s Team next week.

The club’s director of rowing, Axel Dickinson, said he was delighted with the successes over the week and, with the support of the other club coaches, will look ahead to next month’s Maadi Cup Regatta at Lake Ruataniwha with the Whanganui High School squad.

Mike Tweed is an assistant news director and multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.