Rowing: Lightweight women battle for Rio spot

Picture shows: Louise Ayling (left) and Julia Edward. Photo / NZ rowing.

Edward, Ayling and Strack. It sounds like a firm of accountants.

In fact they are New Zealand's three best lightweight women rowers who have been engaged in a four-year battle with numbers of a sort - as in producing compelling times to try and establish themselves as the premier double sculling combination for the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Julia Edward, Louise Ayling and Lucy Strack have been the dominant lightweight women since 2010, but no combination has been able to firmly establish themselves as the favoured duo in the Rowing New Zealand selectors' eyes.

In 2010, Edward and Strack combined at the world championships on Lake Karapiro; the following year it was Ayling and Strack who qualified the boat for the London Olympics; however it was Edward and Ayling who got the trip to London, where they finished third in the B final, or ninth overall.

Now, talk about full circle. Edward, 22 and Strack, 23, are back in possession of the two seats for this year's campaign, which culminates at the world championships in Chungju, South Korea this month, while Ayling is in the non-Olympic single seater.

"We are quite lucky in that Julia and I row a very similar stroke so we didn't need much time adapting to each other again," said Strack, who is studying, and loving, interior design and decorating through the open polytechnic. "We could just jump back in the boat and continue doing our thing."

The pair began with a win in a lowkey opening World Cup in Sydney in March, when several leading nations didn't bother competing.

A bronze at the top quality third cup regatta in Lucerne last month was a better indicator of how they are travelling. Italian and American crews crossed ahead of them, but as a confidence booster, it did them no harm.

Mind you, they were sixth and last with 500m to go before putting their foot down.
"We never got that rhythm together, it was just really hard work. You know you've got good boat speed if it's feeling light and easy, but we muscled our way through it. It was nothing pretty but we got onto the dais."

Every race is important as part of the learning process for the pair.

"We need all the experience and race time we can get. All those Europeans get far more racing experience from being in Europe. There's a lot of regattas we can't attend because we're on the other side of the world, so any race is a big learning curve for us," Strack said.

A strong performance in Korea is crucial for the pair, given the three-way nature of their scrap for the seats in Rio.

"You don't often see crews that are new combinations winning, so for us we're really keen to put our mark in the mud and say we're putting our hands up for the next four years," Strack said.

She knows Ayling, as the odd one out this year, will feel the same.

"Absolutely. We've all been through our moments of being dropped with various things, injuries or not being up to speed.

"We all know what it feels like and no one wants to be there. So we're all knocking on each others' door and that's the competitive environment RNZ likes to keep us moving. (A feeling of) we're not safe, we are replaceable."