Gold rush for Aramoho at nationals - February 2015
The men's club coxed four medal winners consisting of, from left, Tom Monaghan, James Clark, Jack Hughes, Hugh Pawson and cox Ella Wilsher, with coach Ian Weenink.
IT WAS raining gold for the Aramoho Wanganui Rowing Club members at Saturday's conclusion of the Bankstream NZ Rowing Champs at Twizel.
However, the most precious of metals for Wanganui's elite rowers in the premier events, which is for the regional representative teams, remained elusive for all but one of four outstanding exports taking part.
Ultimately, AWRC showed an impressive conversion from the results of a year before when they had claimed three golds among plenty of silver.
This time, in three days of A Finals at Lake Ruataniwha, the 24-strong squad for 2015 would bring home eight golds, two silvers and two bronze.
They medalled in five of the eight A Finals they competed in on Saturday and gained the most collective points in the sculling events to win the Centennial Scull trophy.
"We had six sculling wins," said club captain Jim Sommerville.
"We only just missed out on the Centennial [Oar] for the sweep, we were second in that."
Ultimately, the Waikato Rowing Club won the Oar for best overall club.
Sommerville named Luke Watts as the star of Saturday, with Watts adding two more golds to his men's senior single title from Friday.
Watts and Hugh Pawson would prove too slick a combination in the men's senior double sculls, taking the win well ahead of their rivals in 6m 46.07s, with Petone RC seven seconds back for silver, North Shore RC picking up the bronze.
As stroke, Pawson then teamed with Jack Hughes, James Clark, Tom Monaghan and cox Ella Wilsher to win the men's club coxed four gold, their time of 6m 32.13s being ahead of Waihopai RC and the Petone composite crew.
The three young members of that team - Pawson, Hughes and Clark - were then joined by Adam Wadey and cox Lucy Allpress for the Under 19 coxed four A Final, where they took silver in a thrilling race, finishing just 0.12s behind the winning Blenheim RC crew in 6m 37.91s.
The gold kept coming in the men's senior coxless quadruple sculls, as Watts teamed with Jamie Saunders, Patrick O'Reilly and Monaghan to win the A Final in 6m 8.01s, ahead of Cure Boating Club and Waikato RC respectively.
Putting their hands up for the AWRC girls, Kayla Spencer (stroke), Millie Thomson, Georgia Hickey, Jessica Brougham and cox Wilsher finished the regatta with silver in the women's Under 19 coxed four, narrowly ahead of the Oamaru RC crew but more than three seconds back from the winning Canterbury RC team.
Wanganui was also well represented in the women's premier rowing events, where Union BC's Rebecca Scown would team with AWRC's Georgia Nugent-O'Leary and the Gowler sisters - Jackie and world champion Kerri - to make the podium.
Representing the Central region, Kerri Gowler and Scown were with St Andrew's Ruby Tew and Petone's Beth Ross to claim silver in the women's premier coxless four, with Auckland winning the race.
Those four were then joined by Jackie Gowler, Nugent-O'Leary, Petone's Erin-Monique O'Brien, Wairau's Holly Greenslade and cox Lauren McAndrew to get another silver in the women's coxed eight, behind the Southern team.
Jackie Gowler and Nugent-O'Leary teamed with Petone's Ella Pudney and Wairau's Hannah Bailey for another silver in the Under 22 coxless quad sculls, behind Waikato, while Nugent-O'Leary and Bailey together won bronze in the Under 20 double sculls behind Auckland and Waikato respectively.
But the top of the podium was finally cracked by Jackie Gowler, as she and Pudney won the Under 20 coxless pair oars, beating Southern and a fellow Central team to the line.