Mahe’s message: Relax
At the age of 40, Mahe Drysdale has discovered trying too hard is not the path to success.
Drysdale will start the world rowing championships in Austria for the first time tonight (NZ time) as part of an eights crew along with fellow dual Olympic gold medallist Hamish Bond.
The New Zealand men’s eight is seeking to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics; requiring a top-five finish at this week’s regatta at Linzottensheim.
They were fourth at their opening World Cup regatta of the season in Poznan, Poland, in June, scored a surprise win at the Henley Royal Regatta soon after and claimed bronze at the final World Cup event in Rotterdam last month.
Drysdale said the crew had learnt a lot in recent months – including trying to relax a little more.
‘‘We were almost trying too hard and not letting the boat do some of the work for us.
‘‘When we relaxed a little more, that seemed to work pretty well for us. We had a much better rhythm, more sustainable and that led to consistency.
‘‘What we found in Poznan was the harder we tried, the slower we went. For the likes of Bondy and myself, that was quite a lesson. In a small boat, you work hard, you go faster. Whereas in a big boat, if you work hard by yourself you go nowhere.’’
The single scull winner at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games said the crew realised they had to make ‘‘some pretty big changes’’ after Poznan.
‘‘Coming into Henley, things weren’t going fantastically well – some of our trials didn’t work out as we hoped but again, we made a few changes and were really happy with how we pulled it all together within about three days.
‘‘We went from probably our lowest point of the year to our best race within three days.’’
That form continued at Rotterdam when finishing third behind eights powerhouses Great Britain and Germany, indicating the crew of James Lassche, Bond, Shaun Kirkham, Drysdale, Brook Robertson, Phillip Wilson, Matthew Macdonald, Stephen Jones and coxswain Sam Bosworth is certainly capable of qualifying for Tokyo.
Drysdale said he was ‘‘pretty confident coming into the world champs’’, but that he lacked the specific background to evaluate.
‘‘The biggest thing for me is having no gauge as to how we’re going – I’ve got no benchmarks from years gone by. It feels pretty positive a couple of days out – I guess we’ll find out when we hit the heats on Tuesday.
‘‘I don’t have the exact knowledge. I feel like we’re going well, but how we stack up against the rest of the world, that’s still a bit of an unknown. You don’t know where people are at the World Cups. You know at the world champs that people are going to be at their best.
‘‘There’s 10 crews and there’s not one of them you’d say is not going to qualify.’’
The five-time world champion said while he and Bond had tried to be of assistance in the crew handling the pressure of the world champs and Olympic qualifying, he was enjoying the shared experience.
‘‘In the eight, the pressure is shared between all nine of you in the boat. We all have to handle it as well as each other.
‘‘It’s been great a few months – we’ve tried a few different things this year from a team perspective.
‘‘We were all living together in an apartment, looking after ourselves rather than being in a hotel – that was probably the best tour I’ve been on and I’ve been on a few.’’