Early years without participation In the early years of the modern Olympic Games, people from New Zealand participated but not on behalf of New Zealand. The country's earliest participant,
Victor Lindberg at the
1900 Summer Olympics, was only officially recognised as New Zealand's first competitor in 2014. In
1908 and
1912, a total of six New Zealanders competed as part of a team from
Australasia. But none of these early New Zealand competitors were rowers. After the
1916 Summer Olympics in
Berlin, Germany, were cancelled due to
World War I, New Zealand sent its first rower to the
1920 Summer Olympics in
Antwerp, Belgium.
1920 Summer Olympics in 1920; New Zealand's first Olympic rower and the country's first winner of an Olympic rowing medal
Darcy Hadfield was a dominant
single scull rower of his time. He had won the
1919 Henley Peace Regatta "with ease", defeating the
1912 Olympic champion
Wally Kinnear. Later in the same month, he won the single sculls at the
Inter-Allied Games near Paris. The long journey from New Zealand by boat to Belgium saw him out of shape at the 1920 Summer Olympics, and he came third in the final race, winning bronze. He was New Zealand's only rower at the 1920 Summer Olympics. Hadfield was defeated in the semifinals of the single sculls by
Jack Kelly Sr., the eventual gold medal winner, but took the bronze medal as the fastest losing semifinalist.
1924 Summer Olympics The
New Zealand Olympic Council decided to send eight rowers to the
1924 Summer Olympics in
Paris, France. The biggest challenge at the time was a lack of funds and in the end, the New Zealand Olympic team was made up of only four athletes, none of them rowers.
Darcy Hadfield was a dominant
single sculler at the time but he had become professional in 1922 and was thus no longer eligible to compete at the Olympics.
1928 Summer Olympics A New Zealand
rowing eight was selected but was unable to travel to the games because of lack of funds. The chosen team consisted of
Hubert McLean (Wellington), Crosby Morris (Canterbury), F. H. Brown (Canterbury), Clarrie Healey (Wanganui),
Mick Brough (Otago),
Vic Olsson (Marlborough), L. Brooker (Auckland),
Bob Stiles (Canterbury), G. St. Clair (Auckland), and G. Duggan (Canterbury). The reserves were Glen Stiles (Canterbury) and N. Webber (Auckland).
1932 Summer Olympics In 1932, seven rowing competitions were held, and New Zealand entered three boats with a total of eleven rowers: a coxless pair, a coxed four, and an eight.
Bob Stiles and
Rangi Thompson won New Zealand's second rowing medal, a silver, in the
coxless pair.
1936 Summer Olympics In February 1936, the national rowing championships were held in
Wellington. Even before the national championships, it was clear that no eight would be sent due to the cost involved and lack of previous international success. Following the regatta, it was decided that no rowers were up to sufficient form, and none were nominated for the Summer Olympics in
Berlin.
Interlude The
1940 and
1944 Summer Olympics were both cancelled due to
World War II. While New Zealand sent a team of 17 athletes to the
1948 Summer Olympics in
London, no rowers were included.
1956 Summer Olympics In 1956, New Zealand entered boats in three of the seven events, manned by eight rowers.
1960 Summer Olympics In 1960, seven rowing competitions were held, and New Zealand entered a single rower:
James Hill competing in
single sculls.
1964 Summer Olympics in 1964 In 1964, New Zealand entered boats in three of the seven events: men's single sculls, men's coxed four, and men's eight.
1968 Summer Olympics In 1968, New Zealand qualified an eight and had a pool of four rowers and a cox as a travelling reserve. Preparations were held in
Christchurch at Kerr's Reach on the
Avon River. The reserve rowers were unhappy with the "spare parts" tag and felt that they were good enough to perhaps win a medal if put forward as a coxed four. The trainer,
Rusty Robertson, commented about them: the funniest looking crew you've ever seen There were stern discussions with the New Zealand selectors. In a training run, the coxed four was leading the eight over the whole race. In the end, the reserve rowers got their way and New Zealand entered boats in two of the seven events: men's coxed four and men's eight. In the coxed four, the teams from
East and West Germany were among the favourites; the
United Team of Germany had won this event at the last Olympics, but that was the last appearance of the German United Team. The teams from the
Soviet Union and
Italy were also among the medal contenders. The East German team won their heat and semi-final in the fastest overall time, but the New Zealand team unexpectedly controlled the final and defeated the East Germans by over two seconds. This was New Zealand's third rowing medal, and its first gold medal in rowing. We were hot favourites but the wheels fell off. We should have won it, finished fourth, got nothing, a terrible experience. In 1968, New Zealand's first golden era in rowing began. Under trainer Robertson, the era would last until the
1976 Summer Olympics. Both the 1968 coxed four and Robertson would later be inducted into the
New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame.
1972 Summer Olympics ; New Zealand in the foreground raced in identical composition at the 1972 Olympics and won gold 1972 was the last year that only men competed at the Olympic rowing events. New Zealand entered boats in four of the seven events at the
Munich Games, and won medals in two of the competitions. The members of the gold medal winning
1972 New Zealand eight came from nine different clubs, which said a lot about Robertson's ability as a coach to blend individuals into a strong sum. The team would win
Sportsman of the Year Awards in both 1971 and 1972. The crew of the eight standing on the victory dais overcome with emotion and "bawling like babies" is one of New Zealand's most memorable sporting moments. The medal ceremony for the eights was also the first time "
God Defend New Zealand" played as New Zealand's national anthem instead of "
God Save the Queen". New Zealand sent 18 men for three of the eight male rowing competitions. When the eight came "only" third, Robertson was dismissed as the national rowing coach; he went to Australia to continue his coaching career. Those rowers who had been nominated for Moscow included
Tony Brook,
Alan Cotter, Stephen Donaldson, Duncan Holland,
Peter Jansen,
Robert Robinson, Anthony Russell.
1984 Summer Olympics In 1984, New Zealand's first female rower attended the Olympics:
Stephanie Foster competed in the
single sculls. There were again eight competitions for men, and New Zealand entered twenty-one rowers across five boats. The
coxless four won a gold medal, while the
coxed four won bronze. Due to the
Eastern Bloc boycott and the absence of East Germany and the Soviet Union, New Zealand was the strong favourite in the eight event, but came a disappointing fourth. New Zealand sent 18 men for three of the eight male rowing competitions. At the time,
Dudley Storey was the national coach.
Greg Johnston and
Chris White were rowing in both the
coxed pair and the
coxed four, but once they qualified for the semi-finals, they decided to concentrate on the larger boat and did not race the coxed pair any longer. ;Men ;Women
1992 Summer Olympics New Zealand qualified four boats for the
1992 Summer Olympics in
Barcelona, Spain:
men's single sculls,
men's coxless four,
men's coxed four, and
women's double sculls. Twelve rowers competed for New Zealand, but there were no medals won in rowing in Barcelona. ;Men ;Women
1996 Summer Olympics New Zealand qualified five boats for the 1996 Summer Olympics:
men's single sculls,
men's pair,
men's coxless four,
men's lightweight double sculls, Eleven rowers competed for New Zealand but like in 1992, there were no medals won in rowing. ;Men ;Women
2000 Summer Olympics New Zealand qualified three boats for the 2000 Summer Olympics in
Sydney, Australia: men's single sculls, men's coxless four, and women's single sculls. Six rowers competed for New Zealand, and
Rob Waddell—at his second appearance at Olympic Games—won a gold medal. ;Men ;Women
2004 Summer Olympics in 2010 New Zealand rowers qualified five boats with 11 rowers; two boats for men's and three for women's races. Twin sisters
Caroline and
Georgina Evers-Swindell went into their
double sculls as the favourites and did not disappoint; they beat the German team of
Peggy Waleska and
Britta Oppelt by 1 sec to win gold. ;Men ;Women
2008 Summer Olympics New Zealand rowers qualified eight boats with 16 rowers; five boats for men's and three for women's races.
Mahé Drysdale won his first Olympic medal (bronze) and the
men's pair of
George Bridgewater and
Nathan Twaddle also won a bronze medal. But the lasting rowing memory from the Beijing Summer Games is the gold medal by the Evers-Swindell twins, who beat their German opponents by 0.01 sec. The twins have twice won the
Lonsdale Cup (in 2003 and 2008), awarded by the
New Zealand Olympic Committee for the most outstanding contribution to an Olympic or
Commonwealth sport during the previous year. In 2016, the twins were awarded the
Thomas Keller Medal, the highest honour available in world rowing. ;Men ;Women
2012 Summer Olympics (rear) and
Murray won Olympic gold in the coxless pair in both
2012 and
2016 and
Scown in 2010 New Zealand rowers had their most successful campaign to date at the
2012 Summer Olympics in Great Britain. Eleven boats with 26 rowers had qualified, and three gold and two bronze medals were won. The men won gold in the
single sculls,
double sculls, and
pair, and bronze in the
lightweight double sculls. The women won bronze in the
pair.
Hamish Bond later wrote that he watched
Nathan Cohen and
Joseph Sullivan in their final, and with 500 m to go, they were 3.5 sec down on the leaders and in fourth place; whilst they were the reigning world champions and had dominated the qualifying races, Bond was convinced that they had no chance of winning their final. But they had the most impressive sprint and won by half a length. It gave Bond confidence that he could win his race, too, and so he did (with
Eric Murray) the following day. ;Men ;Women
2016 Summer Olympics in 2010 in 2013 The 2016 Olympic campaign in
Rio de Janeiro at the
Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon was another success for the New Zealand rowing team. The country's largest team ever, with 36 rowers, competed with 11 boats.
Mahé Drysdale in the
single sculls, and
Hamish Bond and
Eric Murray in the
pair repeated their gold medal performances from four years earlier. The
women's pair built the success from London and gained silver. New Zealand initially qualified ten out of a possible fourteen boats for each of the rowing classes listed below. The majority of the rowing crews confirmed Olympic places for their boats at the
2015 FISA World Championships in
Lac d'Aiguebelette, France, while a women's single sculls rower had added one more boat to the New Zealand roster as a result of a top three finish at the 2016 European & Final Qualification Regatta in
Lucerne, Switzerland. The teams had to have also competed at the
New Zealand Rowing Championships, held in
Lake Karapiro, to assure their selection to the Olympic team for the Games. The rowing team was named on 4 March 2016. On 1 July 2016, the Russian men's quadruple sculls boat was disqualified due to a doping violation, resulting in New Zealand gaining the men's quadruple sculls slot as the next-best non-qualifier. For the first time in Olympic history, New Zealand rowers participated in the men's lightweight four and the women's eight. The 2013–16 Olympic cycle was the first full cycle under the auspices of
High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ). Rowing was the largest beneficiary of HPSNZ's investment, receiving $32.1 million of the $162.2 million spent on Olympic sports during the four-year cycle. ;Men ;Women
2020 Summer Olympics New Zealand's team for the Tokyo Olympics is made up by 32 rowers and coxswains, plus Charlotte Spence, Davina Waddy, and Ollie Maclean as reserve rowers. The main qualification event were the
2019 World Rowing Championships, where nine boat classes were qualified: M1x, M2x, M2−, W1x, W2x, LW2x, W4x, W2−, W8+. Rowing New Zealand announced in 2019 that its medal target for Tokyo was five. New Zealand had started in all 14 Olympic boat classes at the event but the LM2x, M4x, M4−, W4− and M8+ did not qualify. The men's lightweight double scull (LM2x) had a further chance to qualify at the May 2021 Asian & Oceania Qualification Regatta but New Zealand did not start there. The other four boat classes had a further chance to qualify at the May 2021 World Rowing Final Olympic Qualification Regatta at the Rotsee in Switzerland. Only the men's eight was at the start and the team qualified through coming first. Meanwhile, reigning world champion
Zoe McBride (LW2−) had unexpectedly announced her retirement from rowing in March 2021 over health concerns. Rowing New Zealand tried to team up various lightweight rowers with
Jackie Kiddle, including
Lucy Strack who had retired from rowing in 2014, to fill the seat but no combinations resulted in performances that would have had a medal chance. A month after McBride's retirement, Rowing New Zealand withdrew the lightweight women's pair boat class from the Olympics, with Kiddle as a reigning world champion not travelling to Tokyo. ;Men ;Women The make up of the eight had initially not been determined, with ten rowers—including two pairs of sisters—who were to travel to the Olympics:
Kerri Gowler and
Grace Prendergast (who will also compete in the pair),
Jackie Gowler,
Beth Ross,
Phoebe Spoors,
Kirstyn Goodger,
Kelsey Bevan,
Lucy Spoors,
Emma Dyke, and
Ella Greenslade. The entries were confirmed on 9 July 2021, with the coxless pair team of Kerri Gowler and Prendergast not being given double-duty. In the end, this changed again, K. Gowler and Prendergast did double-duty, with Goodger and P. Spoors remaining as reserves. ==Medal table==