Rowing: Dye-hard crew serious in quest for gold

Alex Whyte (cox), Hayden Austin, Jesse Westerman, Henry Missen and Keegan Boyle. Photo / Alan Gibson

Hayden Austin and his three mates from Whakatane High School have good reasons for wanting to win at the country's biggest rowing regatta.

The under-16 coxed quadruple sculls crew have had three years of 5am wake-up calls, no parties and hours upon hours of gruelling training on the Whakatane River.

But there is one thing that possibly pushes the foursome even harder.

"We just want to beat the rich schools like [Auckland Boys'] Grammar and Hamilton Boys' High," said Hayden shortly after the crew powered to first in their heat at the AON Maadi Cup 2009 at Lake Karapiro yesterday.

More than 1800 students with 584 boats from 106 schools accompanied by massive entourages of teachers and parents are at this year's event making it not only the biggest rowing event in New Zealand but the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Whakatane boys have turned heads with their multi-coloured mullet haircuts in a sport they say can be "a bit stuffy at times".

"We give the other teams a bit of a hard time when we're out there on the water and they never say anything to us," said Hayden. "They just put their heads down and try to get all serious."

Getting there has been a long and hard row for the foursome. "We basically train for 10 months of the year, up at 5am to train for a couple of hours and do it all again after school," said Harry Missen. "It's been like that for the last three years and while our mates are out partying we'd be like 'oh nah I can't I have to train'."

The Whakatane High School four, who claimed bronze last year at the nationals at Lake Ruataniwha, are after gold on Friday where they hope to exact revenge on their rivals Roncalli College from Timaru, who clocked in a second slower in another heat.

Maadi Cup 2009 spokesman Roger Milne said Lake Karapiro and the Maadi Cup was the birthplace of many New Zealand champions who had gone on to even greater things on the world stage.

MAADI CUP 2009

Where: Lake Karapiro.
When: Until April 4.