‘Cool’ NZ eight heading to Olympics

WELLINGTON: The New Zealand men's eight has successfully qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games after winning the final at the last Olympic qualification regatta in Switzerland.

The New Zealand crew needed to finish in the top two and, after winning the preliminary race, appeared to be well placed to gain qualification.

New Zealand, Romania and China were close through the first 1500m with Italy trailing and it was in the last 500m New Zealand managed to pull ahead and won by 1.2sec from Romania.

Crew member Tom Mackintosh said because of the cutthroat nature of this regatta, all the crews went out hard.

‘‘The Chinese and the Romanians were holding us right up until the 1500m mark, but I think we really showed our colours in that last quarter with our fitness and good training programme and it meant we could make gains in the last 500m,’’ Mackintosh said.

Mackintosh, who was competing in his first regatta with the eight, said their win in the preliminary race helped them in the final.

‘‘It gave us a lot of confidence in solidifying our own race plan. We knew that the Romanians would always be tough and after matching them on Friday, we knew we could probably do it again.’’

The final was brought forward a day because of forecast bad weather for Lucerne.

The men's eight will return to New Zealand this week where it continues training throughout a 14day period based in a managed isolation and quarantine facility.

‘‘It's cool that we can officially now say that we're heading to the Tokyo Olympics. We've been training for this for a long time, so we'll head back to New Zealand for more training with the Olympics being the big goal,’’ Mackintosh said.

Ten New Zealand boats have now qualified for Tokyo, nine of which will contest the Games.

Earlier this year, Rowing NZ and the New Zealand Olympic Committee declined the lightweight women's double qualification at the Tokyo Olympic Games following Zoe McBride's retirement.

The women's single, women's double, lightweight women's double, women's pair, women's quad, women's eight, men's single, men's double and men's pair gained Olympic qualification at the 2019 World Rowing Championships.

The New Zealand Olympic Rowing Team will be announced on June 11.

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES Nine is enough . . . Celebrating after winning the final of the men's eight at the Olympic qualification regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland, yesterday, is the New Zealand crew of (from left) cox Sam Bosworth, Matt Macdonald, Tom Mackintosh, Phillip Wilson, Daniel Williamson, Michael Brake, Shaun Kirkham, Hamish Bond and Thomas Murray.