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RPC coaches announced by Rowing New Zealand

Monday 18 May 2009, 4:27PM

By Rowing New Zealand

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Caroline and Georgina Evers Swindell won gold in 2004 and 2008. Rowing New Zealand hopes its new RPC coaches will help find and nurture champions of future Olympiads.
Caroline and Georgina Evers Swindell won gold in 2004 and 2008. Rowing New Zealand hopes its new RPC coaches will help find and nurture champions of future Olympiads. Credit: Rowing New Zealand

Rowing New Zealand has announced four key coaching appointments for its Regional Performance Centres.

The RPCs are designed to provide a high performance stepping stone for the medal winning rowers of the future. There are four centres – Auckland RPC, Waikato RPC, Central RPC (which covers the Wellington, Wanganui, Nelson and Blenheim regions) and Southern RPC (which covers a large area from Canterbury to Southland).

Former internationals Dave Rodger and Ian Wright will head up the Auckland and Waikato RPCs respectively whilst current international coach Mark Stallard remains at Central RPC and Gary Hay, one of the coaches behind Rangi Ruru’s dominance of the sport at school level in recent years, takes up the reins at Southern RPC.

“These are key appointments for the RPC project which remains a key philosophy of Rowing New Zealand in building an infrastructure for the sport which will provide medals in 2010, 2012, 2016 and beyond,” explained High Performance Manager Alan Cotter.

Rowing’s elite athletes head off to Europe next month, whilst strong Under-23 and Junior teams are also heading overseas. Rowing New Zealand is hoping to send a small team to compete in the Canadian Henley Regatta drawn from international-standard athletes not included in any of the existing teams.

“The strength of the RPCs in the future will be very helpful in giving us a greater pool to choose from when it comes to selection for all of our international teams, with the exception of the Juniors who come out of a very strong national rowing infrastructure at schools,” added Cotter.

“We also passionately believe the RPC system will allow talented athletes to train with equally talented athletes and that this will be key in future years. We’d really like to see up to 40 athletes with international experience or potential training at each of these centres.”

Ends.