Rowing: Selectors consider taking Olympic eight

Photo / Christine Cornege

It will soon be decision time on whether New Zealand rowing fields that most romantic of all crews at the London Olympics - the men's eight.

Provision has been made for the men's eight to train with the summer high performance squad at Lake Karapiro while a decision is considered whether to send them to Lucerne for the 'Regatta of Death' in May - the last chance to qualify for London. It is a significant investment of taxpayer money with no guarantee of a decent return, at least in 2012. It involves outlaying for eight rowers, a coxswain, a coach and potentially a reserve oarsman to fly to Lucerne.

That event establishes which countries are awarded the final places in the fields before the Olympics. New Zealand finished fourth in the B final (10th overall) at this year's world championships in Slovenia. The winner of that race qualified for London while the others - including the United States and Czech Republic, who also beat New Zealand - will race off for the last position in Lucerne.

It's acknowledged the Kiwis will do damage to their overall Olympic campaign by having to peak twice in a season. Yet optimism abounds for the men's eight despite a poor injury run for the whole RNZ squad last season which meant some of their best had to bolster other crews. They were still just 0.96 seconds (less than a length) behind the Americans and Czechs in Slovenia which is seen as ground that can be hauled back.

The selectors are leaning towards taking an eight. On top of the screeds of analysis, the gut feeling is the public can relate to that crew more than any other; a cultural concept driven by the achievements of New Zealand's 1972 Olympic champions and 1982-83 world champions. They also capture valuable media attention. As it stands, a sweep oar squad of 14 and a sculling oar squad of five are training at Lake Karapiro over summer. Those 19 athletes will eventually fill 16 positions in the quadruple sculls, coxless four and eight crews.

The extra numbers cover potential injuries - Carl Meyer, James Dallinger and Ian Seymour have recently been rehabilitating - and provide competition in what could be musical chairs when the Olympic crews are selected after the national trials in March.

The present training regime has three coxless fours working separately under coaches Dave Thompson, John Robinson and Mike Rodger (who also trains the quad).

RNZ lost the services of the previous co-coach of the eight, Mark Stallard. Stallard had eight years' involvement with RNZ. He has gone back to coach locally in Blenheim.

Stallard co-coached the men's eight with Thompson over the past two seasons which included fifth at the Lake Karapiro world championships.

There's understood to be no acrimony but Stallard previously admitted to being frustrated when his crew was altered just days out from the world championships.

Jade Uru was removed so he could row in the higher-priority men's four when Meyer suffered a late injury.