Murray parks the boat
athlete in New Zealand that’s gone and won at two different sports. He’s the next Jeff Wilson.
‘‘If he gave the time trial a real crack, got the right coaching, there’s no reason why he couldn’t be one of the best in the world and go and do the time trial at the Olympics. Wouldn’t that be amazing?’’
Murray knows that would put a permanent end to a combination that has an eight-year, 69-race unbeaten record at the highest level. But it’s not something that bothers him right now.
‘‘I haven’t really spoken to him, but he might get through the next little while and say ‘actually I’m not suited, I’m too big’ or something like that.
‘‘As far as it’s gone so far, holding his own and more.’’
As far as future rowing plans go, the duo doesn’t have anything concrete.
‘‘At the moment we’ve just parked it,’’ Murray said. ’’We’ve both been vocal about different ideas that are possible. Nothing’s off the table.
‘‘It depends around where our motivations lie - if there’s a really good squad going around at Rowing New Zealand you think, shit, the eights are going to win some medals, would that be better? Would it be better to go back in the pair - you’ve got to have a look at what’s going around in the world. he’s
‘‘In a way, my decisions are influenced by Hamish and I’d like to say vice-versa. If he says ‘I’m not coming back rowing’ then I’m thinking ‘that’s the pair gone then’.
‘‘It’d probably be the same - if I decided I wasn’t going back he may decide he wouldn’t find someone else good enough for the pair. He could look to the single.’’
What rowing fans will miss out on in 2017 is a superstar clash between the Kiwi pair and Croatian brothers Martin and Valent Sinkovic, who won double sculls gold in Rio to cap off a dominant run then switched to the pair with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in mind.
‘‘That came out of the blue a little bit,’’ Murray admitted. ’’I was like ‘shit, that could have been quite fun to race!’’ That piques your interest a little bit.’’
The 34-year-old has used his planned year away from competitive rowing to fix torn cartilage in his knee that’s been present for a couple of years but rarely affected his rowing.
Murray said he managed the injury through to Rio ‘‘then I blew it up’’ climbing up the Corcovado mountain to see the Christ the Redeemer statue after he and Bond had repeated their gold medaltriumph from the 2012 London Olympics.
He’s now back cycling, on a rowing machine and - for the first time in over five years - working with weights.
Murray said the pair stopped doing weights under former coach Part of me would love to see him give the time trial a go. Dick Tonks in 2011 in favour of more rowing sessions ‘‘and we never went back into the gym’’.
‘‘You could notice it a little with our explosiveness, but then we started doing some stuff on the erg and that seemed to be fine.
‘‘Some people in the British programme are very weights-specific; they do a lot of it, others not as much.
‘‘A lot of factors come into it ... age, fitness ... for us it was just ‘no, that was it’.’’
Murray is now aiming for a return to the elite summer training squad with Rowing NZ next season.
‘‘I had no ambition of racing this season - I knew it would take 12 weeks to get back to near full fitness with the knee - but definitely I know I have to train if I want to go back for next year.
‘‘I’ve had my downtime and now need to work that back up to be able to train every day at a highperformance level, at the level required to be an international rower.’’
With Bond and Murray joined by fellow Olympic champion Mahe Drysdale taking a year out from the sport - along with a number of other Kiwi world champions there’s opportunities for younger talent to stake a claim for highprofile boats to contest the 2017 World Cups and world champs.
‘‘I don’t know whether it’s just my perception of it but it didn’t seem after the last Olympics [London] there was much of a drop-off of athletes moving on,’’ Murray said, referring not just to Kiwi rowers.
‘‘Eight years ago after Beijing there seemed to be a big drop-off, and this time’s been the same. We’ve seen quite a few of the British team opt out when we didn’t really see any after London.
‘‘Our squad here at the moment is young and full of enthusiasm and they’re pushing the limits, which is really cool.’’
But what they need to do next is learn how to win at the pinnacle of the sport - NZ’s two gold in Rio came from Murray and Bond, 30, and the 37-year-old Drysdale, while 33-year-old Rebecca Scown won silver in the women’s pair with Genevieve Behrent, then 25.
Murray and Drysdale had been to three previous Olympic Games, while Rio was Bond’s third Olympics.
‘‘For me, almost the first two Olympics was an experiment learning how to do it,’’ Murray said.
‘‘Very seldom do you get crews that go to the first Olympics and win, or win medals.
‘‘So now those people have got that experience, they’ve got the enthusiasm, they don’t want to be a statistic next time, they want to be one of the headlines.
‘‘Now that they know what people like us did day-in, day-out, year after year - ‘they were able to step up every time, able to win’.
‘‘That basically becomes ground zero for your training.
‘‘You just have to do it. There’s no hiding away from it and that’s what the rest of the world is doing.’’
It means rising stars Finn Butcher (Alexandra) and Tauranga’s Callum Gilbert will receive High Performance Sport New Zealand funding for the first time, with Gilbert celebrating as the leading Kiwi K1 qualifier in yesterday’s heats.
Rio Olympic silver medallist Jones, who progressed to the C1 and K1 semifinals despite battling a chest infection, is delighted to see Gilbert and Butcher rewarded for solid world cup seasons last year.
‘‘It was always a goal before the Olympics to help the sport and I’m stoked that I’ve been able to help,’’ Jones said. ‘‘It can be pretty hard to compete at the highest level in sport with limited support so it’s great to see some of our talented younger paddlers getting funding.’’
Meanwhile, Australian star Jess Fox dominated the opening day of the Oceania championships, more than 5secs ahead of her nearest rivals in the K1 class and 6secs clear in the C1 heats.