Last chance for Olympic rowing hopefuls

Press, 2 March 1984, Page 30

Last chance for Olympic rowing hopefuls

PA Hamilton A season’s rowing reaches its fruition for finalists in the first 10 events at the New Zealand rowing championships on Lake Karapiro today. The finals began midafternoon, after a morning clear of racing, but the main interest will come tomorrow with the other 31 finals including all the glamour events and culminating with the men’s champion eights. The finals provide Olympic hopefuls with their last chance to prove to selectors they should be included in the Olympic trials, the names for which will be

decided on Sunday. The West End club, from Auckland, dropped a bombshell yesterday morning when they revealed that their men’s champion coxed four, the Olympic hopefuls Grant Botica, Kevin Lawton, Shane O’Brien and Stu Henderson, would not compete in the final tomorrow.

The crew were keen to compete, but according to their coach, John White, it had been decided they should concentrate on the coxless four and also aim to hold on to the club’s prestige national (redcoat) title in the coxless quadruple sculls. It means that when it

comes to Olympic trial selection West End has put all its effort on the crew winning the coxless four title where it faces stiff opposition from the other heat winners, Waikato and also North Shore. Yesterday’s repechage, to determine the field for the coxed four, was not needed after Petone 2 scratched out of that event and then the coxless pair. It plans to put its effort into the men’s championship coxless four where it managed to get through to tomorrow’s final, finishing second to Avon in the second heat ahead of Star of Wellington. The Petone scratchings

from the men’s champion coxless pair allowed Mercer iito the semi-final field and in a surprise row the Mercer combination of Gerald and Robert Steenkamer finished third in an incidentpacked race. They were edging close to Star 1 (Allan Greer, Phil Horwell) throughout the 2000 m and at the line clashed oars with their rivals. Star protested and it was upheld by the chief umpire, Tom Flood, giving a changed result of Star 1 into the final and Mercer out. The coxless pair field for the final will now be Avon (the world championship

gold medallists, George Keys and Les O’Connell), Waikato 2 (Bruce Holden, Ross Dormer), North Shore 1 (Mike Stanley, Roger White-Parsons), West End 1 (Tony Lawton, Andrew Bruce), Waikato 1 (Herb Stevenson, Geoff Horan) and Star 1. Interest in the first repechage heat of the men’s championship eights went when Wairau scratched, giving the world championship crewed North Shore, which has been struggling for form, a rowover with Petone, both going automatically into the final to join Waikato and Avon.

North Shore cruised down

in an easy 6min 8.9 s and Petone in 6:21.1. In the second heat the impressive Waikato 2 crew earned its place in the final, winning from Wanganui, and leaving Wellington 2, which beat its Wellington 1 crew, out of the final. • An echo from the gold medal glory of the world championships at Duisburg last year returned to Lake Karapiro yesterday. Five of the men who won there were yesterday presented with their suitably inscribed oars by the Gover-nor-General, Sir David Beattie. Conrad Robertson (North Shore), Keith Trask (North

Shore), Greg Johnston (Waikato) — all members of the coxed four — and Barrie Mabbott (North Shore) and Nigel Atherfold (Waikato), who crewed the eight, were the recipients. The other oarsmen had previously been presented with their oars. The tradition goes back to 1968 and the Olympic gold won by the coxed four. Dudley Storey, then a member of that crew and this year rowing's Olympic team manager, made it clear then that the oarsmen felt they should be able to keep their oars as mementoes of victory — and that’s the way it has been since.