The Hamilton Boys' High School eight celebrating their victory at the 2024 Aon Maadi Cup regatta at Lake Ruataniwha, Twizel. Photo / Picture Show Ltd
The Hamilton Boys' High School eight celebrating their victory at the 2024 Aon Maadi Cup regatta at Lake Ruataniwha, Twizel. Photo / Picture Show Ltd
The Maadi Regatta at Lake Karapiro this year will feature 2200 secondary school rowers competing for national honours.
Westlake Boys' High School and St Bede’s College are top contenders for the Boys U18 Coxed Eight.
Rangi Ruru Girls' School and Waikato Diocesan School for Girls lead the Girls U18 Coxed Eight.
This week the religious experience that is the Maadi Regatta makes its way to the shores of Lake Karapiro as a staggering 2200 of the best secondary school rowers compete for national honours.
A select few will walk away with their names etched in history – but for every teenagedcompetitor who takes to the water over the next six days, it’ll be an event they will never forget.
Maadi has a hype about it that is unrivalled on the secondary school sports scene. Just being there is a win in itself. That comes from the months of emotional and physical investment by each athlete and crew.
“We’re up at 4.30am most mornings. They’ve got to drive to where we row from, which is Hobsonville on the North Shore, and we row until 7.30am. These kids will then get on a bus and go to school,” says Westlake Boys’ High School coach Andy Hay.
“Then they normally do some weight sessions and some erg sessions on top of that. And that’s pretty common for most schools.”
Westlake Boys' High School rowers, like most crews at Maadi Cup, have been putting in long hours on the water and in the gym. Photo / Mike Smith
Hay understands the commitment these athletes are making – he was once in their shoes, as a coxswain for Westlake at Maadi Cup in the early 1980s.
“We weren’t hugely successful. We made the final both times but never placed,” recalls Hay.
His own career scaled international heights. He was cox of the world champion New Zealand eight of 1982 and ‘83 before becoming NZ Olympian number 446 in Los Angeles.
“I’ve always felt a great affection for the school that helped me get to where I got to and I’m back here coaching them now,” says Hay.
He says rowing is “hard to leave” and he enjoys the opportunity to help the next generation grow as rowers and as young adults.
Former Olympic cox and current coach of Westlake Boys' High School, Andy Hay, presenting an award at the 56th ISPS Handa Halberg Awards in February 2019. Photo / Photosport
“They learn about looking after your mates, they learn the discipline of having to be somewhere and not let other people down. They learn to stick to a task and be able to complete it. And, it just makes you physically and mentally really strong,” says Hay.
It’s a philosophy shared throughout the rowing community.
“For us at St Margaret’s, success isn’t just about the end-of-season result – it’s about fostering a lifelong love of sport,” says Ian Smallman, head coach of one of the favourites for the Girls U18 eights, St Margaret’s College.
The regatta is hosted in turn at Lake Karapiro in the north and Lake Ruataniwha in the south. This year the crews, coaches and supporters will converge on Waikato. Smallman says that does give the North Island crews an advantage.
“The North Island crews are on their home turf, so they have the advantage of familiarity. This will be our first time racing them this year, so we are looking forward to seeing them out on the water,” he says.
Home “turf” may provide familiarity but history shows that it guarantees little else.
Especially in the regatta’s glamour events – the U18 coxed eight.
“It’s got a mystique. It’s quite an atmosphere at about sort of 5.15pm on a Saturday afternoon at the end of March, when those eight boats go into that starting zone and the place just goes dead quiet. And then it erupts as the crews go,” says Hay.
Spectators line the shallows of Lake Karapiro for the finals races at the 2021 AON Maadi Cup. Photo / Photosport
History
The Maadi Cup was first raced in 1947 at a regatta in Whanganui – but the trophy’s origins began half a world away. The cup was donated by Dr Youssef Bahgat of the Cairo Rowing Club in Egypt, as a token of friendship. It was awarded to the winners of a points competition between Maadi Camp (where Kiwi soldiers were stationed from 1940) and the Cairo Rowing Club. The camp was beside the famed Nile River.
The Kiwis won the competition in 1943 and soon afterwards the Maadi Camp Rowing Club captain gifted the cup to the New Zealand Amateur Rowing Association, with the intention for it to be used to foster inter-schoolboy eight-oared rowing. The trophy was then renamed the Maadi Cup and is among the most prestigious prizes in school sport.
The girls’ equivalent is the Levin 75th Jubilee Cup. In 1981 the Maadi regatta was held on Lake Horowhenua. That same year the Levin Borough Council held its 75th jubilee and the then mayor, Jack Bolderson, decided a fitting memorial would be for a cup for the champion girls senior eight.
Most titles
Whanganui Collegiate dominated the event through the 1960s and ’70s and threatened a resurgence at the beginning of the century but it has now been more than 20 years since the Maadi Cup resided in the “River City”.
The top three Maadi Cup winners are Whanganui Collegiate (17), Christ’s College (13) and Hamilton Boys’ High School (12).
A familiar sight at Maadi Cup – the Rangi Ruru Girls' School's eight with the girls' trophy, the 75th Jubilee Cup, in 2021. Photo / Photosport
Rangi Ruru’s dominance on the girls’ side of the regatta began in 1991, when they claimed the first in an incredible streak of 10 straight titles. Their last win was in 2023, when the school finished first and second. A number of schools have won it three times.
Levin Cup top two – Rangi Ruru Girls’ School (Ch, 18), St Margaret’s (Christchurch, 7).
Recent winners
Maadi Cup
2024 – Hamilton Boys' High School
2023 – St Bede’s College
2022 – Hamilton Boys’ High School
2021 – Christ’s College
2019 – Christchurch Boys’ High School
Levin Jubilee Cup
2024 – Christchurch Girls’ High School
2023 – Rangi Ruru Girls' School
2022 – Rangi Ruru Girls' School
2021 – Rangi Ruru Girls' School
2019 – St Margaret’s College
Form guide
The best in each island was decided earlier this month – but they won’t know the context of those results until the North Island and South Island crews face off. Hay says they don’t have to wait long to know which boat has the advantage.
“You’re probably getting a pretty quick idea about 600m into the heat on the first day. You’re kind of getting an idea who has got the speed,” says Hay.
Boys' U18 Coxed Eight
2023 Maadi Cup winners St Bede’s emerged victorious from the recent South Island Secondary Schools regatta at Lake Ruataniwha. The 2024 runners-up will take confidence and an experienced crew to Lake Karapiro. They crossed the line five seconds in front of cross-town rivals Christ’s College.
Christ’s College have taken an even more experienced crew north, with up to half of their 2024 eight returning for the 2025 event. The resource-rich crew have prepared in their new $16 million gymnasium with a studio-full of ergs. They now know how much harder they’ll have to work to catch St Bede’s.
Pulling up alongside Christ’s at the Lake Ruataniwha finish line was Christchurch Boys’ High School. There was less than a second between the crews. CBHS also have a good number of returning rowers from last year’s crew that finished fourth.
Hay’s Westlake Boys’ High School crew nudged out the defending Maadi Cup champions to take the honours at the North Island Secondary Schools regatta at Lake Karapiro. Just under two seconds separated the boats of Westlake and Hamilton Boys’ High School. Westlake appear to be the big improvers in 2025 after missing the A final altogether last year, though they were clearly the best of the rest.
Hamilton Boys' High School's eight celebrate their 2024 Maadi Cup victory at Lake Ruataniwha, Twizel. Photo / Picture Show Ltd
Despite being pipped in the North Island final, Hamilton Boys’ High School will go to the regatta supremely confident of retaining the title they won at Lake Ruataniwha in 2024. Why wouldn’t they be? It’s in their DNA – and they’re racing in their own backyard.
Third behind Westlake and less than a quarter of a second behind Hamilton Boys’ was St Peter’s College of Auckland. The central Auckland school has never won the Maadi Cup and arguably has never had a better chance than now.
Girls U18 Coxed Eight
Rangi Ruru Girls’ School is the most dominant rowing school in the country and look a strong chance to add to its 18 titles. Winners by the barest of margins at the recent SISS championships, the crew has several new faces. It finished a distant third in 2024.
St Margaret’s College is right on Rangi Ruru‘s tail. A photo finish denied their crew the South Island title. They’ll head to Lake Karapiro with four of last year’s crew, who finished a close second in 2024. They’ll have five Year 13 girls, two Year 12s and two Year 11s.
St Margaret's College, winners of the South Island Secondary Schools girls' eight title at Lake Ruataniwha earlier this month. Photo / St Margaret's College
Waikato Diocesan School for Girls looms large. The dominant crew of the North Island in recent years hasn’t done “the double” since 2014. They blew the field away at Lake Karapiro at the beginning of the month, winning by a full six seconds.
Chasing them on that occasion were Westlake Girls' High School and Diocesan School for Girls (Auckland). Both will go into the regatta as outsiders.
Surprisingly, the defending champions, Christchurch Girls’ High School, won’t even make the start line in the elite event in 2025.
Favourites
As far as form guides go, there’s none better than the North and South Island Secondary School Championships held in early March.
The past five Maadi Cup winners had also won their respective “Island” regattas. With that in mind, expect the 2025 Maadi Cup to be a shootout between St Bede’s of Christchurch and Westlake Boys’ High School from the North Shore.
It’s an even stronger indicator in the Levin Jubilee Cup. At least the past 10 winners had also claimed their “Island” title. That would suggest the 2025 champion will come from either Waikato Diocesan or Rangi Ruru. However, Rangi Ruru could barely be separated from St Margaret’s in the SISS final, with just fifteen one-hundredths of a second between them. This could be the year the trend is finally bucked.
The St Bede's eight, winners of the recent South Island Secondary Schools Championships and one of the favourites for Maadi Cup. Photo / Facebook
But as Hay points out, there is always a level of unpredictability in secondary school sport.
“There are probably about six crews who could just knock it off on the day. You’re talking about 16- to 17-year-old kids, right?” says Hay.
Hay’s crew will highly likely figure in the final placings late on Saturday afternoon. He admits there is great anticipation.
“Exciting and nerve-racking, but I guess the thing is to keep it all in perspective. It’s college sport, it’s not the Olympics – but I tell you what, some of these kids will go on to the Olympics one day,” says Hay.
The regatta begins at 8am today, with finals scheduled for Saturday.
Mike Thorpe is a senior multimedia journalist for the Herald, based in Christchurch. He has been a broadcast journalist across television and radio for 20 years and joined the Herald in August 2024.
