South Island Club Champs and Summer Update

The competitive rowing season bridges the academic years with regattas typically competed in between November through to the end of March, with the culmination being the Aon Maadi Cup, which will be held at Lake Karapiro, in Cambridge this year.

The build up to the first medals event for our crew, was The South Island Club Champs held over the weekend of 30-31 January. In preparation for the competitive end of the season we held several week long day camps at Stewart’s Gully, where we regularly train, competed in several smaller regattas, held a week long training camp in Alexandra, rowing on Lake Dunstan and competed in both the Otago Champs and the Canterbury Club Champs in Twizel. Unfortunately, high winds shortened both of these two regattas. We knew our crews were placing well in the heats, but did not have the chance to see how our crews would go in the finals.

This all changed last weekend when after a superb performance in the heats on Saturday, our crew of just 25 made 19 A Finals across 14 events. Several races had multiple St Bede’s crews competing. With perfect conditions for racing on Sunday, we started strong with two crews securing medals in our first race of the day. The medal results for this regatta were:

Novice Coxed 4 

•  1st Sam Earl, Sean Millar, Finn Brook, Layton Carr, Max Walsh
•  3rd Harison Staples, Archie Christian, Heinrich Muller, Oliver Monks, CJ Moore

Mens Int Coxed 4 

•  3rd Gus Guzman, Liam Wagteveld, James Walsh, Archie Christian, Liam Duff

Boys U16 Coxed 4 

•  2nd Josh Hamer, Matthew Glen, Thomas Woodgate, Luke Hickling, Oliver Ellenbroek
•  3rd Luke McBrydie, Jack Dennehy-Coles, Wills McIntyre, Sam Woodgate, Max Walsh

Boys U15 Double 

•  2nd Josh Hamer, Matthew Glen

Boys U16 8 

•  2nd Josh Hamer, Sam Woodgate, Matthew Glen, Luke Hickling, Luke Mc Brydie, Jack   Dennehy-Coles, Neil Kamat, Thomas Woodgate, Oliver Ellenbroek

Mens Int Double 

•  1st Gustavo Guzman, James Walsh

Mens Novice 8 

•  1st Sam Earl, Sean Millar, Finn Brook, Layton Carr, Harison Staples, Archie Christian,     Heinrich Muller, Oliver Monks, Oliver Ellenbroek

Head Coach, Dale Maher was delighted with the results, but even more so, he was pleased with the feedback the competition provided, as this showed the changes required to help the crews improve for our next regatta.

Our next major event will be the South Island Secondary Schools Champs at the start of March, in the interim we will continue to work on fitness and technique, building towards Maadi 2021.

If you have a son interested in rowing, please contact Kerry Sullivan, ksullivan@stbedes.school.nz It is always good for us to get contact details, and for you and your son to have a look at what rowing entails at this part of the season.