At 6am – when most of the nation are asleep in their beds – the top rowers at Marlborough Boys’ College are starting a training session on the Waihopai River. The older students typically train eight or nine times a week, resting on Wednesdays.
By 8am, they’re off the water and straight to school. Immediately after classes finish, they’re back on the water, where they’ll train until about 6pm. On Saturday mornings, they train even longer.
These are the demands of competing at the highest level of college rowing in New Zealand. The prestigious Maadi Regatta looms on Lake Ruataniwha in Twizel from March 23-28.
Marlborough rowing coach Clayton Lindstrom told the Herald how the boys are put through their paces.
“It’s a pretty big workload, but you have got to put those miles in on the river – and we’re pretty lucky where we train at Wairau there. We’ve got a really good stretch of water on the river there that we can train in most conditions. So we can get on the water most of the time.”
Eating is its own battle. Athletes must consume more calories than they burn to avoid losing weight. With so many hours of training every week, their appetites are relentless.
The students are weighed several times a week. If they’re dropping kilos, their coach will have a word with them about eating more.
“So they’ve just got to really work hard, and it becomes monotonous for a lot of boys or girls who are trying to keep the calories going in. It’s a job in itself just trying to get enough into them.”
One of Marlborough’s top prospects is Aiden Bennett, who excelled at the South Island Secondary School Championships over the weekend. Bennett clinched the under-18 single sculls title and the double sculls title alongside Hunter Marfell. Bennett and Marfell were also part of the under-18 coxed quadruple sculls team that placed second in the A final.
Lindstrom is downplaying the prospects of repeat golds at the Maadi Regatta.
“Winning a gold at South Island Secondary Schools doesn’t really mean that you’re going to even win a medal at Maadi. It certainly puts him [Bennett] in a good place. That under-18 single was a really tight race with the boys from Bayfield [Alexander Hattrell] and Nelson [George Moloney].”
There was less than a second separating first and third in the single sculls final.
“It was a very close race, and all credit to those boys that certainly pushed Aiden pretty hard. You’ve just got to keep trying and keep pushing for a bit more speed between now and Maadi, and hope for the best.”
The rowers have only two weeks to iron out any kinks before nationals.
“It’s just about refocusing, getting into that speed work and trying to find a bit more speed so that we can hopefully do as well as we did at South Islands, bring that into Maadi, and hopefully dominate there. But that’s the unknown, really. You don’t know where you are until you get out there and race against those people from the North Island.”
In the North Island competition, King’s College claimed 13 medals, seven of them gold. Waikato Diocesan scored 11 medals, including eight gold.
Lindstrom pointed to St. Paul’s Collegiate, which won the boys under-18 coxed quadruple sculls, as a major threat at Maadi. In the single sculls, Ted Rattray from Mt Albert Grammar School blitzed the single sculls field by almost five seconds.
Hamilton Girls’ High School product Ayla Klein clinched the under-18 single sculls gold. She also made the girls under-18 double sculls A final alongside Mirella Singleton, but the pair were scratched. Emily Young and Zara Blackie from St Cuthbert’s College won the title.
In the South Island, Scout Phiskie from St Margaret’s College won the girls under-18 single sculls title, while Cashmere High School’s Eleri Clare and Charlotte Clatworthy took the double sculls gold.
Other schools to stand out in the south were Wakatipu High School, with 15 medals, including eight gold across the boys’ and girls’ divisions, Rangi Ruru Girls’ School, with 10 medals, including eight gold, and Cashmere High School, which had 10 across the boys’ and girls’ divisions.
Nathan Limm has been a journalist with Newstalk ZB and the NZ Herald since 2020. He covered the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in 2023, hosts The Big League Podcast and commentates on rugby and netball for Gold Sport.