Oamaru Rowing Club’s success on the national stage continues.
At last week’s National Rowing Championships, Oamaru’s novice and intermediate coxed men’s eight both won silver, as did the women’s novice coxed eight. The women’s novice coxswain four and the men’s novice coxswain four won bronze.
Club captain and coach Ivan Docherty said he couldn’t be more proud of his crews’ results.
“I can’t remember Oamaru winning so many medals at a regatta in the past,” Docherty said.
”For a small club like Oamaru, it’s quite exceptional to get two novice eights to win second place. The athletes did extremely well, showing up on race day and putting their best foot forward.
Harry Weir, who was part of the Intermediate and Novice crews, said that although silver was “not as good as gold”, crews were always thrilled to win a medal.
Many of the other intermediate rowers they faced were “like grown men,” which was a tall order. Oamaru’s crew were delighted to stay in the race and were just six seconds behind gold medalists Avon, he said.
Heading into the race, the crews were unsure what the usually ‘dominant’ North Island clubs would be producing, as they had few upstream regattas to compare times.
The women’s eight was thrilled to improve on their bronze medal at the recent South Island Championships.
Rower Kyala Fisilau said the crew worked very hard and wanted to stick with gold-winning Hawkes Bay.
”We were kind of focused on [Hawkes Bay] which separated us from all the other crews,” said Fisilau.
”It was pretty good. . . we can all trust each other in the boat and we also banked on the time from the previous regatta – it wasn’t just gold.
Evie Wilson said the support from Docherty and fellow coaches Damien Goodsir and Win Stephens was incredible.
”Thanks to Ivan for helping us physically and mentally, and for always taking the time.
”[They] knew we had the potential to be up there at the national level.
This weekend, 36 Oamaru rowers will take part in the Canterbury Junior Championships, in Twizel. The Maadi Cup is still expected to take place at this stage at the end of March.
