In mowing down the pace-setting Australians, James Dallinger, Steve Cottle, Paul Gerritsen, Dane Boswell and Quigley bettered the previous under-23 world record by a remarkable three seconds.
So highly regarded is Quigley’s crew that it will represent New Zealand at the world senior championships in Eaton, England, when the country defends the four titles it won in Japan last year.
It has been a meteoric rise for Quigley who coxed the St Kents eight to a third Maadi Cup placing at the 2005 national secondary schools championships on Lake Karapiro.
He was also the college’s head of rowing before travelling to Cambridge this year.
“Dan’s got a lot of fire in his belly, is highly motivated and the rowers respond to his habit of driving them hard,” says St Kents coach Geoff Perry.
That showed when he lifted New Zealand’s rating at Hazewinkel from 38 to 44 when they stormed past the classy Australians for their world record breaking gold medal triumph.
Prior to that he had coxed New Zealand under-19 crews.
With New Zealand demonstrating such depth, Perry is confident it will develop an international eight.
“When it does, it should put Dan in the box seat,” he says. “Who better than Dan the Man for the job?”
Invercargill’s Storm Uru achieved New Zealand’s second world title at the under-23 championships in comfortably beating Frenchman Maxime Goisset in the lightweight single sculls.
Competing in their first international, the lightweight pair of Graham Oberlin-Brown and Peter Taylor emulated the coxed fours winning performance with a new world record.
Nathan Cohen of Invercargill clocked a fast 6m 50s for the 2000m singles sculls for silver behind formidable German winner Karsten Brodowski.