Mollie Gibson was one of Ashburton College’s stars at last year’s Maadi Cup, and this week she and her club-mates are back for another shot at Maadi glory. Photo Heather MackenzieAshburton College’s rowers are set to line up with the country’s best next week at the pinnacle event on the national secondary schools’ rowing calendar, the Maadi Cup.

They’ll be one of the smallest teams there when the regatta kicks off at Lake Karapiro on Monday, but that hasn’t held them back in the past, and coach Justin Wall said it won’t hold them back again this time.

Wall started the long drive up to the Waikato lake on Thursday, with Ashburton College’s seven boats in tow, while his young charges will fly up.

The school is sending a team of six rowers plus coxswains and they will compete in the girls’ under-18 pair, double, single and quad, and the boys’ under-17 single and double, and the under-16 single.

Last year, Ashburton College sent a team of nine rowers to the national event at Lake Ruataniwha and they came away with some outstanding results. Veronica Wall – who has now left school – won the under-18 single, the under-18 double with Mollie Gibson, and the under-18 quad with Gibson, Emma Stagg and Lara Biggs, while Gibson, Stagg, Biggs and Aidan Elvines were third in the under-17 quad, and Gibson won the under-17 single.

This year, Gibson is back for more and hopes are high that she’ll add more medals to her Maadi tally.

“We are looking forward to, obviously, good performances but we don’t want to say too much until we know what we have to do,” Wall said.

At recent regattas some of Ashburton’s young rowers have shown that they can do more than just keep up with the South Island’s best, and now they are eager to test their skills against the country’s best and hopefully finish on the podium.

The Maadi Cup regatta will begin with heats on Monday and Tuesday, with repecharges and quarter-finals to take place on Wednesday, followed by C and D finals, and semi-finals, on Thursday. Friday and Saturday are the big days where all the A and B finals will take place.

Wall’s hopeful all Ashburton rowers will feature in those A and B finals, and maybe inspire their school mates to follow in their footsteps in years to come.

Ashburton College’s rowing numbers have been down a bit over the past couple of years, but an open day just last weekend saw 18 prospective rowers head along for a look at what the sport entails.

“We are a small rowing school but we have been trying to increase numbers, and if most of the people coming to our open days come back, we will be doing well,” Wall said.

“We’ve got the lake, we’ve got the gear, we just need the numbers.”

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian- 22 March 2019