Putting in the hard yards is paying off for Queenstown rowers (from front) Josh Speight, 14, Alex Hall, 14, Cam Williams, 15, and Michael Foley, 14.
The dedicated team – with Marco Dyson in place of Josh – took out the under-15 coxed quadruple scull at a 1000 metre sprint regatta at Twizel last weekend.
Michael and Marco also stormed home in the under-16 double scull, with Cam and Alex in third place.
Their coach Annabel Ritchie says they are pleasing results for so early in the season.
The boys work for it – spending more than seven hours a week on the water practising, along with a run around Lake Hayes on Saturdays.
“It’s a pretty full-on schedule for them and uses up a lot of their weekends and limited social life but they’re all pretty competitive and keen to give it a good go, so it’s very encouraging,” Ritchie says.
Josh and Matthew Nicolson, 14, are new recruits to the crew, who will slog 15km from Cromwell to Clyde in a race on Sunday.
The boys have their sights set on winning the coveted Maadi Cup at the NZ Secondary School Championships at the North Island’s Lake Karapiro in March.
