Today at Rowing NZ, the U20 All Blacks visited the High Performance Centre at Lake Karapiro to see what the high performance program for rowing looked like. In all sports, even high performance they do things a little differently and that’s exactly what the boys got to experience today. Putting the boots aside, they got amongst touring through the boat shed and having a little Erg practice before it was game on and the competition started! 

Eric Murray (2 x Olympic Gold Medallist and 8 x World Champion Rower) co-ordinated the day and started with the classic 2000m sprint- however it was a little different from Rowing NZ’s regular 2k as all the boys got split into four teams of 8 and smashed it out in a relay with each having to sprint 250m before quickly changing over for the next. The quickest team won with a time of 05:21.2 with the runners up chasing them all the way but just fell short by 1.4 seconds. 

Whilst enjoying lunch, Eric Murray spoke to the boys which was based around motivation, training, work ethics and mature learnings for the future- although being a multiple World Champion and Olympian for rowing, Eric got into rowing to stay fit for his rugby season. Who would have known?

Unfortunately due to the un-pleasant weather it was an afternoon of indoor fun- and no better way than to involve all three Concept2 machines; the RowErg (Indoor Rower), BikeErg and SkiErg for an ERGATHLON. A fast and furious event where two participants from each team started on the Indoor Rower for 100m, followed by a 200m sprint on the BikeErg and finally a 100m blow out on the SkiErg. The spirits in the room were so high and as you can imagine very competitive. 

The U20 All Blacks are departing tonight to Argentina for the U20 World Cup. All the best to you and good luck.