Rowing: Out of water, still on track

Rowing New Zealand is adopting a policy of liberal compromise as it plots world championship success next year.

Cross-training is being promoted so cabin fever doesn't set in, with the event scheduled a couple of months later than usual. That's when Lake Karapiro turns international host on the last day of October next year.

In the stronghold of Dick Tonks, one of the toughest sports coaches in the land, elite athletes have been allowed to opt out of their skiffs more than usual over the last couple of months. There's a catch. The athletes have to be involved in some other suitably strenuous physical activity.

For instance, lightweight men's pair world champions Peter Taylor and Storm Uru opted to give the Auckland marathon a crack on November 1. Taylor says he ran the race last year but underestimated it so was keen for another crack.

"Our problems start with the fact that while we're fit and sit on the water fine, when it comes to running, our bodies don't like the impact as much."

Taylor won the duel between the sculling duo in three hours 20 minutes, with Uru pulling out injured halfway through.

Taylor says their coach Calvin Ferguson is right behind the move.

"Ferg knows it keeps us fit and our minds active and we know we've still got testing sets at the end of the month on the water and the erg machine. There's no hiding."

Both Taylor and Uru competed in the Lake Karapiro half-ironman last week. Uru exacted revenge for the marathon, finishing 12th in 4h 36m 4s, 14 minutes ahead of Taylor in 24th. Fellow lightweight world champion Duncan Grant came 10th just under four minutes ahead of Uru.

The trio were joined by others in rowing's elite squad such as the team of Nathan Twaddle (swim), Graham Oberlin-Brown (bike) and James Lassche (run), who were the third best male team in 4h 39m 11s.

Event organiser Errol Newlands says the rowers took little convincing to compete.

"There's a good community feel in Cambridge, so word got round and I received a barrage of entries. They obviously decided it was time to stop coming down the lake backwards and get in the water rather than being on top of it. They're a bunch of insanely fit guys, willing to give anything a go."

Hamish Bond also joined the race on a bike leg in a mixed team who were third overall, beating the team of Twaddle, Oberlin-Brown and Lassche by over 16 minutes. The men's pair world champion had the fastest cycle-split of the day, with Newlands describing him as "a machine who just monstered the course".

Bond is another supreme advertisement for the cross-training fitness policy, fresh from completing the Tour of Southland. He was a last-minute signing for the winning Zookeepers-Cycle Surgery team. It also meant helping former Olympian Heath Blackgrove to the yellow jersey.

"That might well have been the hardest week in my sporting career. We didn't have particularly bad weather but the wind was just incessant - with gale-force gusts you needed superb bike-handling ability. "

Bond's been told he can leave it until next month before he and partner Eric Murray contemplate the defence of their title. The Karapiro Spring Regatta continues today - it's understood about 25 athletes from the elite squad are competing.