Central rowers have two reasons to celebrate: Lake Dunstan has been named as a Rowing New Zealand summer development hub (SDH), and the Dunstan Arm Rowing Club (DARC) won 15 golds at New Zealand Masters Championships last weekend (September 16-17).

To complete the medal haul, the DARC squad of 16 athletes also won two silvers and six bronzes at the Lake Ruataniwha regatta.

DARC coach and SDH coach Simon Smith said 17 years of toil were paying off and every year they were aiming for better results.

Simon put his hand up for the SDH opportunity when Rowing NZ wanted applications and said he is thrilled to be part of developing rowers to get to the next level. 

“We put our names forward because we’ve got some young and up and coming athletes in the club and senior grades and I wanted to be involved with that because I care about my athletes and I’m on that journey with them.

“To my surprise we got it, which is fantastic for Dunstan, fantastic for my athletes, and for the Otago region. 

“To give the [athletes] the opportunity to train together, come together, stay in the region, it's just win-won for everything really...I’m really proud to be able to look after those athletes, and really proud to work with Rowing New Zealand and try to develop the youth and the future of our sport,” Simon said.

The SDH objective is to provide developing athletes with high performance potential with a place to train and get support closer to home. It will enable these athletes to stay engaged and further develop in their regions. 

Coach Simon (left) with the club’s coxless quad crew at NZ Rowing Nationals earlier this year.

Rowing NZ has introduced two new pilot programmes to replace the disestablished Regional Performance Centres (RPC) to foster upcoming talent in the sport summer performance hubs (SPH) and SDHs.

Rowing New Zealand athlete development manager Janey Charlton has been driving the structural shake-up for the last year, consulting with the community to solve a problem.

“The RPC model went because of the large centralisation here at Lake Karāpiro. The old model didn't cope with having 45 athletes in this building,” she said.

The locations of SPH and SDH across New Zealand. PHOTO: Rowing NZ 

Janey wants clubs to be strong, but she believed another tweak was needed.

“The clubs are operating a really good club programme, but the athletes are not at the standard to come into the set-up here. So, what the summer performance hubs are trying to do is put in place a daily training environment that pushes the athlete’s level so that they're ready to be one of our top Under-23 athletes or can come into the building as an elite.”

The two SPH are based out of Waikato Rowing Club (RC) and Avon RC (Christchurch), and 15 athletes are spread across the two centres after being invited through a talent identification process.

The other three summer development hubs will operate in Auckland, Wellington, and 

Blenheim. 

For information about DARC contact:[email protected]