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It's tough at the top of rowing By IVAN AGNEW Thursday, 27 April 2006 ASK Rodney Stephens why he can’t crack an elite New Zealand rowing crew and he’ll say. “I’m not strong enough.”
Yet Pakuranga resident Stephens is a remarkably fit, 1.98m tall, 95kg athlete, who stroked the Auckland Rowing Club’s premier eight to victory at Karapiro in February to beat a powerful Canterbury-Avon club combination which had ended the long domination of Waikato crews. He’s also a member of the national champion Red Beach surfboat crew which won the short and long distance titles at the New Zealand surf lifesaving championships at New Plymouth. The one and a half length eighths triumph gave Stephens his second rowing redcoat after crewing with Nathan Twaddle, Garry Roberts and David Schumacher to win the coxless four in 2004. This year, with NZ U23 rep Steve Cottle replacing the retired Roberts, Stephens, Twaddle and Schumacher won silver. Twaddle and George Bridgewater are the world champions in the pair. That inspirational Auckland coach Barry Creal should give Stephens the responsibility of stroking an Auckland club eight which also includes Twaddle, world elite crew reserve Schumacher and world single sculls champion Mahe Drysdale, says much for his high regard of Stephens’ ability. Stephens is quick to say it’s taken time for the club to build to its present strength. “Five or six years ago we were in the doldrums. But we’ve stuck together, done the hard work and are now getting the results Avon managed after most of Waikato’s champions retired about the same time. “Now it’s Waikato who are rebuilding and I’m sure they’ll come back strongly.” Despite his own modest assessment of his strength, Stephens was good enough to cap his years at St Kentigern College by winning the nationals secondary schools U19 single sculls, was in the eights crew at the 2003 U23 world championships in Croatia, and was a non travelling reserve for the 2004 Athens Olympic team. Ask him the reason for New Zealand’s amazing success on the world stage last year and he’ll point to coaching director Tonks, a member of the silver medal four at the 1972 Munich Olympics when the Tony Hurt-stroked golden eight rowed to a magnificent victory to crack the East German stranglehold. “He’s an extremely tough taskmaster but he gets results and has created an incredibly competitive environment.” Two sessions daily, covering between 40 and 50km in pre-Olympic season training, is no place for the faint-hearted. “They’re murder and all you want to do in between is sleep,” Stephens says. Yet such sessions are successful formula for producing tough-minded world champions such as the Olympic and world champion Evers-Swindell sisters and the remarkable Drysdale, who made a miraculous recovery from a bad back injury to win his world single sculls crown. “At almost two metres and around 100 kg, Mahe is a cut above the rest, but it’s his determination which is so impressive,” says Stephens. “He won’t take no for an answer. If you tell him he can’t do something, he’ll prove you wrong.” While world titles may be beyond Stephens, he remains a huge talent who somehow combines rowing with surfboat racing. Last December his New Zealand crew was third overall against 24 Australian crews contesting an Ocean Thunder series over four weekends in Sydney. Remarkably, although he joined a surf lifesaving club when he was 10, the past summer was the first crewing surfboats for a fitness fanatic who somehow manages two tough sports during a busy summer schedule. |
