Tom Mackintosh

Tom Mackintosh began rowing at Lindisfarne College and Hawke’s Bay Rowing Club in 2012 at the age of 15.

Within two years he found himself selected in the 2014 junior men’s coxed four. The crew raced to a bronze medal at the World Rowing Junior Championships in Hamburg, Germany. Tom took time after the World Rowing Junior Championships to focus on his study at the University of Canterbury. During that time he stayed involved with the sport at Rowing Performance Centre level and was also in the New Zealand Universities trans-Tasman team in 2015. In 2016 he was selected in the New Zealand U21 team that competed in a two-regatta series against Australia. The following year Tom was selected in the U23 men’s eight that went on to place 7th at the World Rowing Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

In 2018 he moved into the U23 coxless four and took home a bronze medal from the U23 worlds in Poznan, Poland. When the New Zealand selectors decided to take on this young crew to compete at the elite World Rowing Championships in Bulgaria for experience, the crew achieved a final ranking of 15th at the regatta. In 2019 Tom was reselected into the men’s U23 coxless four, and he and his crew managed to take home a silver medal. Following the World Rowing U23 Championships Tom successfully trialed for the men’s elite coxless four, which finished 14th at the World Rowing Championships. Unfortunately this was outside of the Olympic qualification standard for the 2020 Games.

Then after only securing a boat for Tokyo via the last-chance qualification regatta in Lucerne in May, the men's eight (with Tom at bow) went on to reclaim the title after a near 50-year wait in an exhilarating final by winning gold.

Tom successfully graduated with his BCom from Canterbury in 2019 and is also a small business owner specialising in custom pegboard shelving and other wooden furniture products.