Opting to fly rather than row across the Tasman Sea to compete in rowing at the Pan Pacific Masters Games (3 – 11 November) was one of the best decisions made by one New Zealand pair who dominated the field at Coomera Regatta Waters over the weekend.
Tonia Williams and Rebecca Caroe will find it tough getting through security on their return trip after they claimed three gold medals on Saturday and followed it up with silver in the women’s 1000m pairs today.
The pair teamed up with Dragons Rowing Club for their first Australian masters competition and were blessed with their hospitality which included borrowing their boat.
“We wanted to have some really good races against other athletes and we knew that Australia was stacked full of great rowers,” said Williams.
“This is our first time racing in Australia as masters, after we met the crew from Dragons Rowing Club who came over to do masters nationals in New Zealand, and we got chatting about racing at the Pan Pacific Masters Games.
“They have hosted us, lent us boats and now we’re in some of their crews as well, so we’re having a great regatta.”
Today the pairing proved age was not a barrier to claiming silverware as Caroe, 47, and Williams, 46, competed in the youngest age category and almost took out gold.
“We race in age categories because you want to race against people the same age as yourself, so they have age bands,” said Caroe.
“The A classification is the youngest with the average between 27 and 35 and ours is C with competitors in their late 40s.
“We just won silver in the A race and it was really hard. You can see our legs, they’re like jelly.”
Caroe said their experience at the Pan Pacific Masters Games was fantastic and already have plans to bring over a larger and younger squad for the 2014 Games.
“We need to bring some of our contemporaries across because we’ve got a large squad of masters in a whole range of ages at our club,” said Caroe.
“We’ve had a fantastic time and we’ll tell them to come over and win one of these medals in two years time.”
The girls will wind down with some ‘active recovery’ on the golden sands of the Gold Coast tomorrow (Monday) before jetting off home on Tuesday.
The new system was born here and filagra this is not something that we would like to see. Caverta although better in some elements but not important for us.
