Top local rower Veronica Wall will take one step at a time as she heads off to Lake Karapiro for an intensive rowing camp before heading off to the Junior World Rowing Championships in the Czech Republic. Photo supplied.Ask anyone who knows rowing, and they’d probably be willing to put money on Veronica Wall becoming an elite world champion rower one day. But the 18-year-old Ashburton girl isn’t thinking that far ahead just yet. Right now she’s focused on the next challenge that awaits her – the Junior World Rowing Championships in the Czech Republic. Erin Tasker reports.

Veronica Wall walked out of the gates of Ashburton College for the final time last week, not really knowing what the future holds.

Many have the 18-year-old rower pegged as a future world champion, and after winning 18 gold medals at club and school level over the past four years, that’s a realistic possibility.

But Wall isn’t setting her sights on being top of the world, or rowing for New Zealand at the Olympics. Yes, it’d be nice to be world champion or win gold at the Olympics one day, but Wall isn’t getting ahead of herself. She’s taking things one step at a time.

This weekend Wall is off to Lake Karapiro, near Cambridge, where she’ll spend the next few weeks in an intensive camp before heading off to the Junior World Rowing Championships in the Czech Republic. That’s as far as she’s letting herself think right now.

It’s her third shot at the junior worlds, but the first time she’ll compete in the singles. Two years ago, she was part of the girls’ quad which finished fourth at the junior worlds at Rotterdam, and last year she was in a double which finished sixth in the C final at the junior worlds in Lithuania.

On this next step on her path, Wall has got a couple of familiar faces to keep her company. Fellow Ashburton rower Mollie Gibson is also part of the New Zealand team heading to the junior worlds, while Wall’s dad – Justin Wall – is the team’s single and quad coach.

Wall said she couldn’t have got to where she is on her own. Ashburton College’s staff and students have been incredibly supportive over the years, as has the Ashburton Rowing Club, but much of the credit for her success has to go to her family. Both of her parents grew up rowing and her mum, Charlotte Cox, was also a top cyclist.

“They both personally know what it’s like trying to do really well in sport,” Wall said.

Wall wants to keep getting better – that’s her immediate goal. So, when she returns from the Czech Republic she’ll base herself in Christchurch and row out of the Southern Regional Performance Centre. She plans to find herself a job for the remainder of the year before heading to university where she plans on studying a science.

Just like rowing, science could well have been in her blood with mum a doctor and dad a dentist, but Wall isn’t sure exactly what career path she’ll choose just yet, she just knows she needs one because sport doesn’t last forever.

Wall is finishing high school later than her peers. A Year 13 student at Ashburton College last year, Wall returned this year as a Year 14 student, a move which allowed her to compete at another Maadi Cup – New Zealand secondary school rowing’s pinnacle event – and bring more medals back to her school, and also keep her mind ticking over while she prepared for her next big rowing challenge.

Wall started rowing in Year 9. Her parents moved to Ashburton around the time Lake Hood was being established, so for as long as Wall can remember, the Ashburton Rowing Club has been a part of her life.

“I just kind of got into it because we were always being dragged down to Twizel to regattas anyway,” Wall said.

Instead of being given jobs to do on those trips, Wall decided to give the sport a go herself, and after her first year never dreamed that she’d be able to one day go on to achieve what she has.

In her first appearance at Maadi there were no A finals made.

“We made a couple of B finals and we were chuffed at that,” she said.

The next year though, she returned, and won her first 16s single title. From there, she just kept winning. Yes, she has 18 school and club level medals from the last four years, but that’s not what it’s about for her.

“You don’t really think about numbers, you’re always moving forward to another goal,” she said.

Wall’s goals don’t stretch too far out into the future. Right now, her goal is to work as hard as she can over the next few weeks at Karapiro and have fun, rather than eyeing up a time or a placing in the Czech Republic.

At last year’s nationals Wall went under the current junior world record so she knows she’s in with a chance of winning a medal, but being in a single scull, it’s all on you and if you’re not completely on your game both physically and mentally come race day, anything can happen.

“It’s about training smarter and you make goals and work towards them. It’s self-improvement rather than going out to win.”

If she gets the chance to go to the Olympics one day, that’ll be great.

“Once you’ve been around sport like that you know how much work goes into it, so I think if I wanted to do something like that I would just fully throw myself into doing as much as I can rowing-wise, but it’s also about what’s going to make me happiest in the long run.”

At this stage, Tokyo 2020 isn’t on her radar. There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge before then.

“I never really sit down and think I want to go to the Olympics, it’s just more incremental steps,” Wall said. “Going to the Olympics would be cool but it’s not like I have an Olympic team poster on my wall or anything.

“I just think it’s important to be a balanced person rather than having all your eggs in the one basket.”

If she wanted, she probably could have gone to America on a university scholarship once she finished school, but that isn’t her right now.

Right now, she’s committed to New Zealand, where the pathways and infrastructure to get to the top, are in place.

Wall is a girl who has got her head screwed on right. She loves rowing and so long as she loves rowing, she’ll continue to do it, but she also knows that sport can’t last forever and wants to be prepared for whatever life has to throw at her in the future.

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 4 June 2018