A long hard season of rowing has come to an impressive end at the 2018 Aon Maadi Cup – with a silver and bronze medal won, as well as a number of A final placings.
St Paul’s had 43 rowers head south to Twizel for the national championship, which was held last week.
Fine warm conditions on Lake Ruataniwha accompanied the early stage of the week with 10 crews advancing to A finals and six crews making the B finals.
As the week progressed, the regatta was hit by high winds and cold wet conditions that cancelled racing for just over a day. Due to this set back, all finals were to be raced in one day. Rather than scratch crews, which many schools chose to do, St Paul’s chose to race every final with some impressive results.
In the girls’ A final, the under 17 four finished seventh, while the under 17 eight, consisting of Jasmine Fountaine, Olivia Knowling, Abby Bartels, Maddy Dickie, Cate Wilson, Abby Payne, Arabella Mitchell, Lucy Fullerton-Smith and cox Molly Flavell, produced a very gutsy performance to claim bronze.
In the under 18 girls’ A final, rowing pair Grace Watson and Kate Littlejohn kicked off the day with a superb row to take silver. The under 18 four narrowly missed a medal finishing fourth, while the under 18 eight produced a gutsy effort in the prestigious Jubilee Cup to finish fifth best crew in the country at school girl level.
In the boys’ A final, the under 16 four finished a creditable fifth, while the under 16 eight came in sixth. In the under 17 boys’ competition, the four narrowly missed a medal finishing fifth after being in contention for most of the race. The under 17 eight also came in fifth. The novice eight finished seventh, while the novice four A crew won their B final for a top-10 finish in New Zealand.
Following the regatta, it was announced that Max Dobbe, Sam Harcourt, Miah McDonald and Gus Hanham were selected for the under 17 North Island trials, and Grace Watson and Kate Littlejohn were selected for the under 18 New Zealand junior trials. The trials will take place in the April school holidays.
