Friday, May 4, 2012

Olympic rowing - high hopes for London

New Zealand has high hopes for our rowing team to succeed at this years Olympic Games in London. Going into the event we have world champions in 4 events and have qualified 11 boats for the Olympics (that means we currently have 11 different crews ranked in the top 10 in the world). This level of achievement in sport is unprecedented in our nation's history. We can all learn a lot from the Rowing New Zealand's cautious improvement and well planned progress in the last decade. They have let their performance do the talking, grouped a stunning collection of athletes, merged them into teams that have performed consistently well over the last few years. They seem to be getting stronger and stronger as time goes on.

In this 5 minute interview Eric Murray, a 4 time world champion and bow of the coxless pair, talks about progress leading up to the Olympic Games. He reinforces the simple, clear philosophy of a group of champions - hard work, honesty and practice, never resting on what you have achieved, because tomorrow you have to be better than the day before. There are so many messages here for the school environment and what is required to make school a special place for the children.

It also shows the beautiful training environment of Lake Karapiro, based near Cambridge, in all its glory.


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