Rowing: Youngsters on track to be stars of the future

As rowing continues its preparation for the Beijing Olympics, it also has its pegs in the ground marking a line through to the world championships at Lake Karapiro in 2010.

It's all very well celebrating another medal haul at the Eton world championships last month, but the sport recognises the importance of ensuring lines of succession are being laid once the present elite crop of oarsmen and women are gone.

Almost as significant as New Zealand's one gold, two silver and three bronze medals at Eton was the three golds and one silver won by the under-23 rowers at their world champs in Belgium a few weeks before.

Names such as lightweight single sculler Storm Uru , Graham Oberlin-Brown and Peter Taylor in the lightweight double scull and silver medal-winning single sculler Nathan Cohen don't ring with the same resonance as Mahe Drysdale or Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell round New Zealand households, but they are in the vanguard of a strong push to maintain New Zealand's standing at the forefront of the sport.

And there was gold for the men's eight and silver for the women's quad scull team at the junior worlds in Amsterdam last month to savour.

New Zealand took four gold medals at the Gifu world championships a year ago, but it can be argued that the Eton return was just as significant, even if the colours were different.

Why? Because the top rowing nations stepped up a gear this year. Olympic champions who had taken a year off were back on the water; nations are starting their preparations in earnest for Beijing.

"Gifu was a clear reflection of New Zealand being the best-prepared team. This year the whole world championship programme stepped up another notch and we are still up at the front of the bunch," Rowing New Zealand high performance director Andrew Matheson said.

He believes Beijing may be a year early for the best of the under-23 rowers, but 2010 is an excellent opportunity for them, and the junior rowers, to step into the elite programme.

Matheson saw positives in all the under-23 and junior performances.

Equally, Duncan Grant's outstanding bronze in the world lightweight single scull final, combined with Uru, Oberlin-Brown and Taylor, showed New Zealand officials can look forward to progress in the lightweight class.

"We don't need to do anything radical. Just keep fine tuning, keep looking for little edges here and there and I think we'll be on track to do well in Beijing, and 2010, and the 2012 London Olympics. It's all looking pretty good."

Next year is Olympic qualifying year. The bulk of that is done at the world championships, which will be in Munich in August. Matheson reckons five crews, matching the Athens Olympics of 2004, is the minimum expectation. Seven would be ideal.

Some nations stack their crews to ensure qualification before returning to their preferred discipline. But New Zealand was unlikely to follow suit, says Matheson, because it doesn't fit the psyche and philosophy.

"We like to get out and perform. You can tie yourself up in knots and set yourself up for a failure. We've got crews going fast and we want to use it as a stepping stone into the following year."

The competition will certainly move up a gear from this year.

"There are some interesting challenges. Sometimes the approach is to cover your bases to set you up for [Olympic] year. In saying that, you've still got to make sure you are near the front of the pack, otherwise it's too hard a climb the year after. It's a wee bit of a chess game moving forward."

RNZ will go about its plans in a low-key way, as Matheson put it "making sure we make the right moves now so we don't paint ourselves in a corner. Obviously we want to keep our crews on the dais, but we've got to keep a broad perspective of 2008 as well".

If anyone thinks some of the cream of New Zealand rowers are hitting the downslope, Matheson begs to differ. He sees no reason why all the big names can't be slugging it out with the best on their home patch in four years.

"A big part of the Olympic cycle is about retaining our athletes, which we haven't always done well.

"It's a key part, hanging on to our people so they grow in experience and step up each year. Arguably there's no one who can't be there in four years' time, but they are choices athletes will eventually have to make."

What lies ahead

* On October 2, the elite squad, plus a selection of under-23 rowers, reassemble for summer training.

* They break up about 10 days before the national championships at Lake Ruataniwha, Twizel, from February 20-24.

* Those who miss the senior squad will work at regional performance centres in Christchurch, Blenheim, Waikato and Auckland over summer.

* The elite and under-23 trials are at Lake Karapiro from March 2-8, with the squads for next year's European campaign named on March 8.