Veldman wins sculls

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34097, 8 March 1976, Page 30

Veldman wins sculls

( From

TIM DUNBAR)

LAKE KARAPIRO.Wybo Veldman’s twenty-first red coat win in the national rowing championships at Lake Karapiro on Saturday was the one he had always wanted.

Veldman, of Whakatane, perhaps New Zealand’s bestknown oarsman and a member of the Munich gold medallist eight, has won titles in coxless pairs (eight), coxed pairs (five), eights (four), and coxed fours (three) in previous national regattas.

He is therefore known as an oarsman rather than a sculler. But after some “dabbling around” in previous years Veidman started sculling seriously at the start of this season and was a surprise winner of the national title on Saturday. Ted Hale, the Sydney sculler who is hoping to represent Australia in the Montreal Olympics, just caught Veldman on the line to win the final by two feet but is not eligible to win a New Zealand national title.

“That was my happiest red coat. I might have won a lot before but I’d always wanted to win one on mv own,” said an elated Veldman after the race.

Among the sucllers that Veldman left floundering were two former singles champions — Murray Watkinson (West End No. 1), nine times, and John White (West End No. 3) once.

"Normally a single sculler has to have an apprenticeship of at least four or five years, so I was pretty lucky to win after so little sculling. In the past I was more often under the boat than in it when I tried to get in a single. “I’m really rapt about that race — it was the most exciting of my life. “My coach, Tom Reid, told me how to settle into a rhythm, and after a false start when Dick Tonks broke I got a good start. I opened up at the 1000 and the 1500 and tried to hang on in.”

Unfortunately for the Whakatane oarsman, Hale “came with a hell of a rush and probably caught me at the end of a stroke.” Veldman, who filled the No. 7 seat in New Zealand eights from 1967 until 1972, has not put in a nomination for Montreal, principally because he has only spent two winters at home in the last nine years or so. -