The Aramoho Wanganui Rowing club (AWRC) is poised to continue and even grow its good work as one of the more successful feeder clubs to New Zealand's international elite rowing squads.
The club has appointmented Pedro Figueira from Portugal as head rowing coach replacing Ian Weenink.
The AWRC management committeemade a decision back in November 2016 to advertise internationally and domestically when Weenink stepped down to take up a position with a Chinese High Performance Centre.
The advertised position attracted many high quality applicants from around the world and after a thorough screening process Figueira was appointed and he arrived in New Zealand mid-February.
AWRC president Bruce Osborne said the club has set high aspirations over the next few years to grow the numbers of athletes rowing out of the club, develop more comprehensive training and mentoring programmes and continue to profile Whanganui as a centre of excellence in rowing.
"Pedro's role will be key in working with the many volunteer coaches and administrators to achieve the goals and aspirations of the club - these are exciting times for the 128-year-old rowing club," Osborne said.
Figueira was the national coach for the Portuguese Rowing Federation.
This involved co-ordinating and supervising two regional coaches, and working as a link between them and the technical director.
He was also responsible for all the logistics regarding travelling, transport overseas and training camps throughout the season.
During the role he designed the training programme, which involved conferring with the technical director and the team physiologist.
As a team they were able to improve the physiology of the athletes through consistent testing. During his time as national coach, Portugal got the first ever gold medal at a World Cup.
At University level rowing Figueira was chief coach of the lightweight program at Oxford University and at the London Rowing Club, he was responsible for the lightweight development group.
