For the Good of All

Lake Karapiro in Cambridge is the headquarters for Rowing New Zealand’s centralized training programme which has produced “one of the strongest rowing squads in the world” on a budget of just four million dollars. “Medals are important,” said RNZ’s high performance manager Andrew Matheson, summarizing the entire philosophy of his organization in three words. Increased funding depended on winning several medals, not a single high-profile one, and given the small population of 4.2 million, and even smaller pool of top athletes, RNZ had chosen to split up their elite squad, Matheson explained. “We think a little bit differently and put our top-end athletes into the boats most likely to be successful.”