New pair form new bond
It’s no longer Bond and Murray it’s Hunter and Murray instead.
The New Zealand men’s coxless pair boat at the world rowing championships which start in the US on Monday morning (NZ time) will feature the biggest change among all Kiwi boats for 2017.
Gone is the all-conquering, unbeaten duo of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray - Bond to cycling, Murray to retirement - and in comes Tom Murray - no relation and Jamie Hunter.
They will try and continue New Zealand’s absolute domination of the event - six world championship and two Olympic golds from 2009 to 2016 - when the week-long regatta begins in Bradenton, Florida.
Part of that endeavour will include trying to avoid comparisons with the most dominant rowing boat in the sport’s history.
‘‘Of course, we’re always going to compare ourselves because they’re the best of the best in our boat class previously,’’ Hunter said.
‘‘They’ve got the world records so we’re comparing ourselves to that benchmark every day [in training]. But apart from that, I don’t think it’s a good idea to compare ourselves too much in terms of the Rowing New Zealand legacy.
‘‘It’s a bit of dangerous territory.’’
‘‘My approach has been be my own rower and not try and row somebody else’s stroke,’’ Murray added.
That worked well for the new duo in their first major international regatta together. At the final World Cup regatta of the season in Lucerne, Switzerland, in July, Murray and Hunter won gold, heading home the superstar Croatian duo of Martin and Valent Sinkovic, who have switched to the pair after winning Olympic gold in the double sculls last year.
It was a highly-promising debut, after an injury kept Hunter out of the boat for New Zealand’s World Cup opener in Poland.
‘‘We didn’t really know where we were going to be in relation to the rest of the field, ‘‘Murray said.
‘‘So it was cool to get out there and have a really good performance.’’
Hunter was initially sidelined by tendonitis in his wrist.
‘‘It got inflamed, so I had to have a few weeks off it and spent on the bike. It took a bit longer than we were expecting to come right so we went over there and trained separately from the team for about two weeks.
Murray said their form in the boat had fluctuated before Lucerne but timed their best performances right and Hunter felt it was a matter of getting to know each other since being named as the New Zealand representatives in the boat in late summer.
‘‘You can race together for a few weeks each year, but until you spend a good training block with each other you don’t really get to know each other,’’ said Hunter, who has switched from the lightweight four.
‘‘I think this far in, eight or nine months, we’re only starting to really understand what each other is doing, know each other’s rowing strokes. It’s only really getting to the point now where we can make some progress forward.’’
Murray said the duo are quite similar.
‘‘We both enjoy our spaces, as much as each other. We get along really well overseas together, when it can be easy to get on each other’s nerves when you’re living in each other’s pockets for up to three months.’’
‘‘It does help a lot,’’ Hunter noted. ‘‘You want to be honest with each other, but at the same time, that honesty needs to be constructive. If you’re constantly getting at each other, you can do things in spite of each other.’’
The environment of the pair is certainly a little different from Murray, who in recent years has been in the eight at under-23 and Olympic level.
‘‘With nine of us previously, now down to two, it’s easier to keep a track of everybody.
‘‘It’s a bit quieter - the other guys are a lively, rowdy bunch.’’