Russian doping find gives NZ rowers shot at Olympics
Russian cheating yesterday opened a door to four New Zealand rowers who thought their Olympic dream had died.
And quad member Jade Uru made no bones about how he felt regarding the volte face in fortunes for him and his three crew mates Nathan Flannery, George Bridgewater and John Storey.
“I had my suspicions when I raced them, how fast they turned out,” Uru said yesterday.
“You hope in our sport everyone is clean. They were cheats. It’s a great day for us, but not the best day for rowing as a sport.”
New Zealand had finished third at the final qualifying regatta in Lucerne. Only the top two crews qualified for the Rio Games.
The Russians had won that final on May 24.
However on May 17, Russian stroke Sergei Fedorovtsev had failed an out-of-competition test conducted by the Russian antidoping agency. It tested positive for a prohibited substance, Trimetazidine, on June 16. The B sample tested positive last Thursday. Russia was out; New Zealand, as next-best finishers, were in.
The quad, in various parts of the world, had been called back by Rowing New Zealand, along with the women’s quad and men’s coxless four to keep training.
All three had finished one spot out of qualifying for Rio in the Lucerne event. But there had been a whiff that trouble might be brewing and New Zealand crews might — only might — be the beneficiaries. “It was the cumulative effect of everything that was going on,” RNZ chief executive Simon Peterson said yesterday. “That small chance grew.”
The upshot was Peterson, who received the notification about 4am yesterday, was able to give the quad the good news at 9am as they came off the water at Lake Karapiro.
“Absolute delight, joy and relief,” was their reaction according to Peterson. “It’s a very tight event in terms of closeness between first and sixth and we’ve got every confidence they’ll be on the podium in Rio.”
That would be some final outcome, but first they will hunker down to a final solid block of training at Karapiro before flying to South America on July 24.
It is felt that build-up is preferable to rushing them across the world now; better to stay in an environment they know intimately to round off preparation.
“I started looking at jobs two weeks ago. I had started to get life on track and me and my fiancee were getting a nice little flat in Auckland,” Uru said. “Coming back to rowing was hard but as soon as I got back, I knew it was ‘go’ time and we’re training as hard as we can.”
So can they dare to dream? Steady on, was the gist of Uru’s response.
“Be process-focused each day. [Having] a result focus is the worst thing you can think about.
“You need to focus on each stroke and when you get there, that’ll take care of itself.”