My Blog

Back to Blog

Tokyo Olympics

We knew Japan was going to be hot, extremely hot, and humid as well. We had prepared as such for this climate with heat acclimation training sessions back in NZ. But holy smokes, going from a crisp New Zealand winter to a literal oven is a shock to the system. Before we left, we were torturing ourselves twice a week in a makeshift heat chamber at Rowing NZ. In this chamber of misery, we would grind away on rowing machines and bikes, in a futile attempt to get our bodies adapted to the heat we wo...

T-minus 6 weeks

T-minus 6 weeks until we leave for Tokyo, Coming off our successful Olympic qualification at the Last Chance Qualifying Regatta in Switzerland, we found ourselves in a curious position. Flying back to New Zealand during a pandemic and straight into 2 weeks of managed isolation in a Christchurch hotel. What a bizarre build up to the pinnacle event of our lives. Although I was over the moon with qualifying the boat for the big dance, I was very aware that 2 weeks in a hotel room was not ideal prep...

2021 Regatta of Death, & pre-Olympic prep

This last year was going to be a long one, and I came into the season concerned for my fraying motivation level. The Tokyo Olympics still seemed so far away. However within the first few months of this season I realised that the extra year that Covid granted us had been a blessing in disguise. Over that time we had some fantastic development of some of our younger athletes who had really stepped up their game and were setting the standard. My motivation came flooding back in a rush and from earl...

When we failed, then Covid struck

2019. The start of something new and something pretty exciting. I had found myself beginning to fall out of love with the idea of the men’s 8. Years of struggle, poor results, and poor team chemistry had led to an 8 that had consistently under performed from 2015 through to this point, but some salvation seemed to be in sight with the formation of the 2019 crew. Exciting new additions saw the inclusion of both Hamish Bond and Mahe Drysdale to our crew, two of my rowing idols and house hold nam...