Rowers reflect on Rio Olympic milestone

Three years on from the most successful Olympic Games in the history of New Zealand rowing, Rowing New Zealands focus remains firmly fixed on Rio 2016.

The New Zealand rowing team is in excellent shape just one year out from the Olympics. 2014 and 2015 saw the New Zealand rowing team named the best rowing nation in the world by winning the world rowing cup series. In 2014 the New Zealand team also topped the elite and under-23 world rowing championships medal tallies. On the back of these results for the first time in history Rowing New Zealand named a full 14 Olympic boat class programme in 2015 to qualify for Rio.

From the junior world championships in Brazil Rowing New Zealands high performance director Alan Cotter says Our rowers are looking forward to being the inspiration in Rio 2016 but the first target is to qualify all 14 Olympic class boats at the world championships which start at the end of the month.

"I believe there has been a great legacy from London 2012, certainly in the standard of our athletes and crews across the board," Cotter says. For the next 365 days our athletes, coaches and support team will work hard to ensure we can deliver inspirational results in Rio. 

For New Zealand rowing team the one year to go celebrations will be a normal training day as they prepare for the 2015 world rowing championships which take place at the end of August.

2012 Olympian Champion Drysdale will be aiming for his fourth Olympics and says he is excited about his progress and the prospects for the entire squad for this years world championships in the lead up to Rio It is exciting that we are now one year away from Rio, the New Zealand Rowing team are all on track for qualification and we are all very excited about trying to qualify all fourteen boats for Rio. The team have achieved some fantastic results so far this year, but the Olympics are the pinnacle of our sport. So we are all aiming to try and take those results through to Rio and achieving something special as a team.

In September, just 11 months out from the Games a small contingent of New Zealands top rowers will travel to Rio for a three day orientation visit in the city that will play host to the 2016 Games. Nine rowers, two coaches and a team manager are heading to Brazil after competing at the 2015 world rowing championships and Olympic qualifying regatta. The New Zealand team will arrive in Rio on 7 September.

The 2016 Games will be the first held in South America, and the rowing regatta will take place on Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas in the centre of Rio from 6 to 13 August 2016. The rowing venue has hosted many important national and international regattas including the 2007 Pan Am Games regatta, the 2013 South American Championships and two Olympic qualification regattas (1996 and 2007).

The New Zealand junior rowing team are competing at their respective world championships at the Lagoa venue which serves as a test event for the Games. The junior team commence racing on the one year to go milestone for a five day regatta which concludes on 9 August.

New Zealand rowers have won a total of 21 Olympic medals including 9 gold, 2 silver and 10 bronze in the Games history. In London 2012 New Zealand rowers the medal haul was three gold and two bronze.