Rowing: New-look squad fired up for Europe

New Zealand's elite rowers headed for Europe yesterday and despite some notable absentees from last year are confident they're in solid shape.

"We're really comfortable, the numbers coming through are really encouraging," Rowing New Zealand high performance manager Alan Cotter said.

And when he talks numbers it's not the physical depth of talent among RNZ's programme - although that's also a cause for pleasure - but rather the times produced on the water.

Four years ago, a few months after the Athens Olympics, New Zealand rowers went to the world championships in Gifu, Japan, and bagged four gold medals in 45 minutes to ensure a place in sporting folklore.

This year it is expected some of the prominent rowing nations will be tinkering with combinations as planning begins for the next Games in London in 2012.

"It's not so much taking the foot off the accelerator as experimenting," Cotter said.

And while that's the case in some aspects of the New Zealand selection, there are also a number of "bankers", crews the national body expects to be challenging for, or standing on, the podium.

He talks of the squad having a "medal base" to it, that is three-time world champion single sculler Mahe Drysdale, a strong coxless pair in Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, world lightweight sculling champion Duncan Grant and a couple of double-sculling combinations "which are going pretty quick".

Gone are Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, the coxless pair Juliette Haigh and Nicky Coles, Rob Waddell, all world and/or Olympic champions. New faces are coming through.

Women from the eight which tried unsuccessfully to qualify for the Beijing Olympics last year have gone in different directions, including a quad scull, coxless pair and double scull.

While respected head coach Dick Tonks oversees the on-water programme, Cotter is keeping things ticking over on shore.

Among recent initiatives was a seminar for the coaches on the rowers in the Generation Y category, as Cotter put it "getting an appreciation of how they think", something which has long had parents scratching their heads, plus more onus on coaching the coaches, of whom 14 are working with the crews at elite, under 23 and junior level.

New Zealand host the world championships for only the second time at Lake Karapiro next year.

When they reach Germany, there will be a quick turnaround for the rowers, whose first engagement in Munich starts next Friday night (NZT).

NZ CAMPAIGN

June 19-21: World Cup, Munich
July 1-5: Henley regatta, England
July 10-12: World Cup, Lucerne
August 23-30: World championships, Poznan, Poland