Drysdale and Bond pairing up?
Olympic great Mahe Drysdale has further teased the prospect of him competing for New Zealand at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after a sharing a video of himself rowing with Hamish Bond.
Drysdale last week revealed he was considering competing for Fiji in an attempt to later defend his Olympic gold medals in the men’s single sculls after losing the seat to Robbie Manson, who was selected for the New Zealand team to attend the 2019 World Cup events in Europe later this year, as well as the world championships in Austria.
Meanwhile, Bond told Stuff last week he had questioned his heart for cycling after making a shock return to rowing with the Tokyo Olympics in mind.
On Monday, Drysdale posted a video of the Olympic rowing champions training together on Lake Karapiro and the 40-year-old wrote ‘‘#KiwiDadsPair’’ in his caption while challenging the Croatian Sinkovic brothers, Valent and Martin, who won gold in the men’s double sculls at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
The Croats have since switched to the coxless pair, meaning racing with just one oar compared to the two used in the double sculls, and they’re the reigning world and European champions in the event.
Drysdale said ‘‘we are coming for you’’, to which the brothers replied: ‘‘You can come, but we’ll wait you at the finish line [sic] would be a real honor [sic] to race with such a legends!!’’
His video features him and Bond training as a coxless pair, which the 33-year-old Bond won gold medals in at the last two Olympic Games (Rio and London) during his unbeaten 69-race partnership with Eric Murray, who has ruled out a rowing comeback.
Drysdale won Olympic gold in the single sculls in Rio and London, as well as taking bronze in Beijing in 2008.
However, Bond has declared his intention of committing to the men’s rowing eight after leaving cycling behind.
He said his sporting career was at a ‘‘crossroads’’ with the next Olympics on the horizon.
Bond’s return to rowing comes after more than two years on the bike in road and track events, which brought plenty of success, including national titles and a bronze medal in the road time trial at last year’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
But his omission from New Zealand’s team for this month’s track cycling world championships in Poland stung.
‘‘I had the chance to take a step back and reflect on what I’ve done in cycling and what the process would be over the next 15 months moving forward,’’ Bond said last week.
‘‘I really started to think ‘this could be my last opportunity to get to the Olympics’, or to compete on the big stage.
‘‘And, if it is the last thing I do in sport, what would I regret not doing? Or what do I want to do the most?
‘‘Your heart has to be in the right place to really commit to something like that and perhaps it wasn’t [with cycling].
‘‘What day to day training and environment was I going to enjoy the most? I thought the [rowing] eight.’’