New Zealand rowing teams won 11 medals at a World Cup regatta, in Lucerne Switzerland over the weekend. They won 6 gold medals, 3 silver and 2 bronze medals.
New Zealand Rowing sent 46 rowers to Europe to take part in a number of regattas during the Northern Hemisphere summer. The rowers competed in 16 different boat classes from single sculls to eights. The women’s eights won a silver medal, very close behind the winners, while the men’s eights won bronze. These two successes were very exciting for New Zealand which is working towards wins in the Rio Olympics in 2016 and Tokyo in 2020. Winning the eights is often seen as the most prestigious win, a bit like winning the 100m running at the Olympics. It is difficult for a country to enter a boat with eight rowers in a race, especially since they come from different parts of the country. They have to learn to race together.
Rowing New Zealand receives $19.6m of taxpayer money through the High Performance funding. This is more taxpayer money than any other sport receives at the moment.
Rowing is a popular sport now with secondary school students and adults. Women’s rowing gained popularity after the twins, Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, won the doubles in Athens in 2004 and again in Beijing in 2008.
Listen to November 7th 2010 to hear about the World Rowing Championships in NZ in 2010.
Vocabulary
• over the weekend – during the weekend
• compete (v) – take part in a race
• prestigious (adj), prestige (n) – more famous, with more honour
Rowing vocabulary
• regatta – boat racing event
• sculls – each rower has two oars (double sculls – two rowers each with 2 oars)
• pairs – two rowers with one oar each
• eights – 8 rowers with one oar each plus a coxswain (cox)
• cox – directs the crew and steers; the cox faces the finishing line