Rowing: Team eyes Olympic return

Legacies can weigh heavy in New Zealand sport. Think Olympic 1500m medals - a 32-year drought broken by Nick Willis at Beijing in 2008 - or rugby World Cups; a 24-year drought yet to be broken since the All Blacks' triumph in 1987.

New Zealand's only Olympic gold medal in the men's rowing eight is held in similar awe. As grown men cried on the dais and VW Kombi vans full of Kiwis celebrated on the shores of Lake Oberschleissheim just outside Munich, God Defend NZ played for the first time at an Olympics as New Zealand's national anthem.

Images of that eight holding off the Americans and East Germans evoke strong memories and provide a tough standard for the current generation to match. New Zealand has not had an Olympic eight since the 1982 and 1983 world champions placed fourth at the Los Angeles Games the following year.

This year's crew of David Eade, Hamish Burson, Jade Uru, Ian Seymour, Tobias Wehr-Candler, Adam Tripp, Sean O'Neill, Tyson Williams and coxswain Ivan Pavich have the best chance in 27 years for the country to make an Olympic return in the sport's premier event. Five of them - Seymour, Wehr-Candler, Tripp, O'Neill, Williams and Pavich were in the eight that finished fifth at last year's world championships. Eade, Burson and Uru were part of the coxless four that earned bronze at the same regatta.

The crew is racing in Lucerne as part of the World Cup regatta this weekend with the finals tonight (NZT). It is their only racing preparation for the world championships in Bled, Slovenia, starting at the end of August.

If they make the A final or win the B final at that event, they qualify for the London Olympics. Otherwise they have to head to Munich next June to contest final Olympic places at what is known as the 'Regatta of Death'.

Eade is the stroke of the New Zealand crew and stroked the Kiwi junior eight to gold at Amsterdam in August 2006; and an under-23 coxed four to gold in 2009. He accepts the history is daunting, but tries to avoid sitting in its shadow.

"Blokes from New Zealand's past eights are always around. You bump into the old boys quite a bit, and they tell you a few yarns. You want to live up to their legacy but you want to forge your own way too, to get a place in history.

"I'm aware 1984 was the last time we sent an eight to an Olympics but we need to think about the process that's going to get us there this time, not past campaigns. If we think about that, it'll bite us in the arse.

"The main thing we need to respond to is heat of the moment pressure and there's only one way to do that - through racing."

The crew has undergone a couple of changes from the original line-up named in March. Chris Harris and Ben Hammond have moved out of the eight into the coxless four with Carl Meyer and James Dallinger. The four is still considered New Zealand's priority for a medal so the injury-plagued Seymour and Wehr-Candler moved back into the eight.

Eade says they've been moved straight into the engine room.

"They're two of the most powerful guys in New Zealand. We've put them right in the middle of the boat because they're delivering impressive numbers. When they go for it, you feel the boat go, too."

Rowing New Zealand high performance manager Alan Cotter says having watched last year's world champions Germany win at the Hamburg world cup last month, the Kiwi crew know what to work on.

"They need to be more aggressive at the start of their races like the Germans. Quicker reactions are required."

Cotter says last year's other medallists Britain and Australia will be strong with Beijing gold medallists Canada and the United States also expected to improve, leading to London. However, the eight finished a disappointing fifth in their heat at Lucerne yesterday and were racing in the repechage overnight.

Meanwhile five other New Zealand rowing crews were through to the semifinals at Lucerne. There were heat wins for the men's pair of Eric Murray and Hamish Bond and men's lightweight double scull of Storm Uru and Peter Taylor. A second place for the women's lightweight double scull of Lucy Strack and Louise Ayling saw them through to the semis.

The women's double of Anna Reymer and Fi Paterson also won its repechage to move to the semi final. Mahe Drysdale made the semis, coming third behind Kenneth Jurkowski of the US and Mindaugas Griskonis of Lithuania.