Whanganui rower Messina Su’a earns place in New Zealand women’s under-21 team

Messina Su'a (left) with Aramoho Whanganui's Robyn van Dijk at the New Zealand Rowing Championships this month. Photo / Picture Show Ltd

Aramoho Whanganui Rowing Club rower Messina Su’a is off to Australia as part of the New Zealand under-21 women’s team.

She is one of 10 athletes who will train at several centres around the country and at Lake Karapiro over the next three months to enable coaches to form a four-oared sweep boat and a quadruple scull boat.

The crews will combine to form an eight-oared crew.

Su’a will train in Dunedin, where she is undertaking a health science degree in global and Pacific health, and will be accompanied on and off the water by friend and fellow team member Maddison Neale from the Clifton Club.

After starting her rowing career as a 13-year-old in 2018, she represented Whanganui High School and Aramoho Whanganui and followed in the footsteps of her father Tasi Su’a and older sister Taliah, also a very successful rower at the Aramoho Whanganui club.

She enjoyed a successful New Zealand Rowing Championships regatta earlier this month, picking up a bronze medal in the women’s senior coxless four alongside Robyn van Dijk, Mila Graham and Madeline Cox.

Su’a joined the Otago University Rowing Club last year and was selected to represent NZ Universities at the Australasian Universities Regatta in Brisbane.

Otago University Rowing also has a long-term arrangement to race at a regatta in Shenyang, China, and Su’a was selected to participate in this event last winter before returning to Whanganui for the summer season.

Su’a trialled but was not selected for the NZ under-21 crew a year ago.

She continued to develop over the next 12 months, with experiences gained at Otago and the club season culminating in the NZ Rowing Championships a week ago, where she gained a bronze medal in the very competitive senior quad scull with her three Aramoho Whanganui crew mates.

Su’a said she was proud of her Samoan heritage and acknowledged the family support she received, as well as from the wider Aramoho Whanganui Rowing Club and coaches who had been instrumental in her development.

Aramoho Whanganui will have four female athletes wearing the NZ singlet this year.

Last week, Georgia Nugent-O’Leary was named to race in the NZ women’s quad at the infamous “Regatta of Death” at Lucerne in May, where a first or second placing will ensure the boat will start at the Paris Olympics.

Kerri Williams and sister Jackie Gowler have made the final selection for the women’s coxless four crew for the Paris Olympics, an event New Zealand qualified for at the World Rowing Championships in 2023.

Su’a and the rest of the team will compete at the 2024 under-21 Pacific Regatta in Sydney in late May/early June.