With all eyes on Tokyo 2020, the Asia Media Centre takes a look at a rowing club at the bottom of the world and how its connections to Japan led to young Kiwi rowers racing at the Olympic venue months before New Zealand Olympians.
Photo: PhotoSport
Life-long rower Glen Sinclair is CEO at the Otago University Rowing Club. He's been "rowing since [he] was born" and been at the club since it was little more than a simple building on the banks of Otago Harbour.
"There was one toilet, one change room, one gas hot - but mostly cold - water shower."
But fast forward and the club has grown tremendously. It's even had its fair share of Olympians come through - including the likes of medal-winners Hamish Bond and Rebecca Scown.
As the club has grown it has also gained international recognition due in no small part to Sinclair. Over the years, Sinclair and the club members have been forging connections on the ground - and water - in Japan and helped lay the groundwork for young Kiwis to race on the Olympic course at Sea Forest Walkway in Tokyo Bay - more than a year before our Kiwi Olympians even laid eyes on the venue.
The club's connection to Japan started seven years ago, when Education New Zealand (ENZ) approached Sinclair with an idea. ENZ were launching a programme called 'Game on English', which saw Japanese students come to New Zealand to learn a combination of English and sporting skills at a time when Japan was turning its attention towards hosting the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic & Paralympic Games.
ENZ was on the lookout for sports clubs that could host Japanese rowers and sounded Sinclair out about joining up.
"Well, we jumped on opportunity really, really quickly," Sinclair says.
Having done some research on rowing in Japan, he knew the best person to contact would be Hiroshi Sugito, who was head of rowing at Kyoto University at the time and had extensive contacts in the Japanese rowing world. Sugito was just as keen as Sinclair and the programme was put in place.
The plan was for students to come to the club for a minimum of five weeks training while also taking classes at Otago University nearby. The first group of students came from Kyoto University's rowing club in 2015 and the programme's been going - Covid permitting - since then.
For Sinclair, it's about offering the students a New Zealand experience, while also helping them train up to an international level. The club normally has two intakes a year, bringing 15 to 20 students over - some of whom are quite competitive.
"A number have competed for us at the New Zealand University championships, so that's a really good experience. They're totally on our team."
Rowing is a growing sport in Japan, but still on the smaller side, especially when compared to more popular sports in the country.
Rowing New Zealand's high performance coordinator Michele Munro knows what that's like.
"Rowing is a really small sport [in Japan], which I guess is the same as in New Zealand. We are a minor sport at that grassroot level, we have nowhere near the numbers that the likes of rugby or netball have. It's the same in Japan - they're fighting against things like baseball, which is a huge sport there," she says.
But it has been growing, especially in the lead up to the Tokyo 2020 Games. In 2019, Japan hosted the World Junior Championships in Tokyo at the Olympic venue Sea Forest Waterway.
The junior championships are always held the year before the Olympics in the actual Olympic venue, as a sort of testing ground, Munro says.
"It's probably the most exciting junior campaign you can go on because they're always really excited to get a feel for what the Olympics might be like," Munro says.
As team manager of the four New Zealand crews in 2019, Munro was on the lookout for someone on the ground in Japan who could help her navigate the ins and outs of competing in another country.
She knew Sinclair from his years working with the Japanese rowing community and asked him if there was someone who could help.
Sinclair had just the contact - Hiroshi Sugito.
Sugito organised the New Zealand junior teams to base themselves at the Seta Rowing Club at Lake Biwa, in the Shiga prefecture. Munro said he helped with everything - from transport to translation, even taking them to local council meetings to show how important it was for Japan to invest in rowing.
"I think it was really amazing for the young athletes to experience, to actually see a culture that operates in a different way to the rest of the world."
The young rowers - four different teams, with athletes mostly coming from high schools - also had to deal with the complications their Olympic counterparts would face two years later - namely the intense heat but also the harbour conditions, which could be windy and choppy.
Despite that, the New Zealand teams came away with some wins and a good sense of what the Olympians could expect - including gold medals.
- Asia Media Centre
