A huge congratulations to ex Christchurch Girls' High School / Te Kura o Hine Waiora rowers (2021) Emily Bowden and Orla Fitzgerald who have been selected to represent New Zealand in the U19 eight and will be competing in Italy at the end of July at the World U19 Championships.

Emily Bowden

I started rowing in 2017 when I was a Year 9 at Christchurch Girls High School / Te Kura o Hine Waiora. My older sister had started rowing a few years beforehand and I had been dragged along to the countless regattas at Lake Ruataniwha. 

At these regattas I slowly warmed to the idea of rowing and decided to give it a crack. My novice season was full of horrible races and pretty average training but I absolutely fell in love with the sport. As the years went by at school, rowing started to become huge in my life and took priority over my other sports and I hate to admit it but sometimes over my schooling. The early morning and late afternoon sessions became routine and I absolutely thrived in these conditions. 

In my last couple of years at school I started to look into the possibility of US colleges and making the NZ representative U19 team. I began the long process of looking into different colleges and realised there is great opportunities over in America for rowers and accepted a Full scholarship to IU. I was selected into the U19 team in 2021 in my last season at Christchurch Girls High School / Te Kura o Hine Waiora. However the last couple seasons didn't exactly go to plan with COVID cancelling the MAADI cup in 2020 and cancelling the possibility for New Zealand to take the U19 team to Plovdiv, Bulgaria to race in the 2021 World Rowing champs. Both of these setbacks were pretty tough to deal with and I struggled for a while with both disappointments, mainly the lack of competing for New Zealand. However both of these setbacks helped me to become more determined and hardworking to make the NZ team this year. Now that I have accomplished that and am heading to Italy to compete in the World Champs, I am so excited for my next challenge in the USA after that.

Orla Fitzgerald

My name is Orla Fitzgerald and I was at Christchurch Girls High School / Te Kura o Hine Waiora from 2017 through to 2021. During this time, I was a part of the school rowing team of which I initially found interest in during my first year of school. One thing that drew me to the sport initially was the social aspect and the great team atmosphere but as time went on, I also fell in love with the continual expectation of constantly having to challenge myself both mentally and physically and striving to become a better athlete each day.

During the four years that I rowed at Christchurch Girls High School / Te Kura o Hine Waiora, I found a better understanding of who I was. I was never the strongest nor biggest athlete within the squad, which I struggled with a lot especially when I was competing against girls much bigger than me. But the most important thing I found that enabled me to be where I am today was realizing that a positive mindset was huge and made a world of difference to overall performance. Coming into each session with an open-mind allowed me to focus more on things that didn’t involve my size; working on technical improvements or strength and trying my best to constantly improve. These were the things that enabled me to make top crews. I know that over the years, I had goals each season to become a better rower, so I did a lot of winter training such as cycling and weights which allowed me to easily transition into the rowing season and it paid off immensely.

Through my success especially in my U18 season, it opened up further opportunities in the rowing high performance environment. To add, the opportunity to row and study overseas became prevalent and a part of my future goals and as of now, I can say that the ability to row overseas has become a lot more accessible to many young girls in the sport. Being selected into the New Zealand Junior rowing team in both 2021 and 2022 has been a highlight of my rowing career as of now and in my opinion, a great representation of what dedication and hard work can do. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities and memories that Christchurch Girls High School / Te Kura o Hine Waiora rowing has given me and the great people that I have been able to meet and row with to make me a better athlete of today and I look forward to following the Christchurch Girls High School / Te Kura o Hine Waiora rowing team in the future and seeing their successes!