Royal week ahead for Kiwi rowing team

An excellent entry peppered with plenty of international standard crews will give the large New Zealand contingent racing at Henley Royal Regatta a strong test next week.

Just ten days after their most successful World Cup regatta in history, the Kiwi team will head to the most famous regatta of them all to race against the unforgiving booms of the old course, one on one, winner takes all.

All of the medal winning crews from Munich will take part in the regatta, although with no pairs or double sculls events for women and no lightweight events, some Kiwi crews will join up and indeed could face their team mates during the regatta week – which culminates with the finals of all events on the Sunday.

Olaf Tufte and Alan Campbell take on Mahé Drysdale and Duncan Grant as well as a field of up and coming domestic and international single sculling stars in the Diamond Sculls, while Emma Twigg takes on 2005 world rowing champion from New Zealand Juliette Haigh and Zhao from China in the Princess Royal Challenge Cup. Eric Murray and Hamish Bond are line up to meet either Brits Peter Reed and Andrew Triggs-Hodge or Sean Keeling and Ramone Di Clemente from South Africa, as well as a host of other top rowing pairs. Both heavyweight and lightweight men’s double sculling crews are entered in the Double Sculls Challenge Cup and the bronze medal winning women’s quad from Munich may face the pair (Scown and Feathery) and double (Twining and Reymer) from Munich who will join up for the regatta in the Princess Grace Challenge Cup for women’s quads.

It will be a huge week for New Zealand rowing, as the RowBox will be on display marketing the Karapiro 2010 Rowing World Championships and a large contingent of guests, including sponsors and VIPs, will attend during the week to watch the New Zealand crews race.

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New Zealand athletes at 2009 Henley Royal Regatta

The Diamond Sculls – Mahé Drysdale and Duncan Grant
The Stewards Cup – Richard Beaumont, Todd Petherick, Graham Oberlin-Brown and James Lassche
The Princess Grace Challenge Cup - Harriet Austin, Sarah Barnes, Louise Trappitt and Genevieve Armstrong
The Princess Grace Challenge Cup – Rebecca Scown, Emma Feathery, Paula Twining and Anna Reymer
The Silver Goblets & Nickalls' Challenge Cup – Hamish Bond and Eric Murray
The Double Sculls Challenge Cup – Nathan Cohen and Matthew Trott
The Double Sculls Challenge Cup – Peter Taylor and Storm Uru
The Princess Royal Challenge Cup – Emma Twigg
The Princess Royal Challenge Cup – Juliette Haigh

A brief history of Kiwis at Henley – by Evan McCalman

New Zealand crews did not appear in England until 1918 during the closing months of World War One. Soldier oarsmen based in England formed a club and, hosted by the London Rowing Club, had much success in eights and sculls. Their eight was not successful at the Henley Peace Regatta in 1919, but Darcy Hadfield won the single sculls title and with it the Kingswood Cup.

Another thirty-three years passed before another New Zealand crew appeared in England. In 1952 the New Zealand Olympic Coxed Four stopped off on its way to the Helsinki Games and rowed at Henley in the coxswainless Stewards Cup, needless to say without success. Success at the Henley Royal Regatta came at last in 1963 when the Auckland Rowing Club’s Champion Four won the inaugural race for Prince Phillip’s Cup.

Appearances by New Zealand’s national representatives at Henley have, regrettably, been infrequent, but the national team did represent our country at the Royal Regatta in 1990, New Zealand’s Sesquicentennial year. This Regatta was memorable, both for Eric Verdonk’s victory in the Diamond Sculls, and for the appearance on the Thames River of one of the largest, fully decorated Maori war canoes or waka, complete with the Maori Queen and a tattooed Maori crew.

In more recent years Mahé Drysdale has so enjoyed the unique atmosphere of Henley’s Royal Regatta that the national team has also been persuaded to take part. He will be joined by Duncan Grant, Emma Twigg, both NZ light and heavy men's double sculls, two women's quad sculls, the lightweight four and Hamish Bond and Eric Murray in the pair representing our national club, the Waiariki Rowing Club, in their build-up towards the World Championships at Poznan in August. Single scullers Drysdale, Twigg, Grant and 2005 world champion Juliette Haigh will represent their domestic New Zealand clubs.

Henley Royal Regatta web site

2009 Entries