Day 3: NZ Rowing Champs
Just a couple of weeks ago I got the chance to ride along with New Zealand coach Mike Rodger on a training row with Emma Twigg at Lake Karapiro.
Mike stayed just in earshot, not saying too much. It was his presence that was important.
“I sit beside her some days just to keep her company because it’s a pretty lonely life out there in the single,” Mike said.
That rainy, misty day we fizzed alongside Emma for two and half hours as she refined the stroke that’s turned her into a world and Olympic champion.
Her vigil in the single is one of the most impressive around. She’s raced the boat 111 times in a New Zealand singlet, stretching all the way back to 2005 when she first raced as an Under 23.
That’s a whole lot of lonely.
Tomorrow, with the crowds back proper for the New Zealand Rowing Championships, she’ll have plenty of company as she races for a home-grown record that’s every bit as important to her – a record 10th title in the premier women’s single.
That would take her past Stephanie Foster’s record nine wins.
Twigg convincingly won her semifinal today in 8:02.40, almost eight seconds up on Otago University’s Juliette Alm-Lequeux.
This will be Alm-Lequeux's first A final in the single at nationals although she has quite some history in the sport.
She rowed out of Otago Girls’ High from 2012-2015, then onto Otago University before making some RPC squads it into the RPC system but didn’t progress further. She decided to travel to France and ended up making their national U23 squad, qualifying through her French father.
Alm-Lequeux did a season in their eight and also made the A Final of the single at the U23 worlds the following year.
Then in 2019 she had a Covid-enforced break, focusing on her other career as a carpenter. She returned to New Zealand last year determined to row again on her terms and has made big progress since.
She now rows without putting big expectations on herself, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t got ambitions.
“When I got back into rowing in July this year at Uni Champs it was mainly for fun, just going with the flow. I’m hoping to get into the New Zealand team but I’m doing it at my own pace.”
Another athlete back with ambition is Brooke Francis. She won today’s opening semifinal in 8:07.53 ahead of lightweight sculler Jackie Kiddle (8:11.39).
Brooke’s back to top level racing after having her first child, Keira, who’s hanging out with mum lakeside for the regatta.
Tomorrow, three women each hoping to show there’s a first for everything.
We’ve been keeping you up to date with the biggest event of the champs, the Men’s Club single which kicked off with 47 athletes on Tuesday.
Well, New Zeland rowing’s version of the hit Korean Netflix show Squid Game is down to the last men standing. Juliette Alm-Lequeux's Otago Uni clubmate Edwin George is in prime position after qualifying fastest in today’s semis, home in 7:29.91 and the only sculler to go under 7:30.
Other quick finishes came from Wairau’s Tristan Gregory-Hunt, Cure’s Alex Fletcher and Hamilton RC’s Jack Clark.