Rowing: Otago crew keeps its cool in the heat of battle

The Otago University women's eight of (from left) Jessica Hayes, Ruby Tew, Kirsty Thompson, Laura Tester, Morgan Shepherd, Rachael Kennedy, Hannah Kennedy, Lauren Clark and Holly Fletcher that dominated the international student regattas in China this week. Photo supplied.

The eight dominated the women's races at the International Universities Regatta in China against the top rowing universities in the world.

The first day's race was held over 2km in Xinjin City in the province of Chengdu in temperatures of 38degC.

The crew of Jessica Hayes (stroke), Kirsty Thompson, Laura Tester, Ruby Tew, Rachael Kennedy, Holly Fletcher, Lauren Clark, Morgan Shepherd (bow) and Hannah Kennedy (cox) comfortably won in 6min 53sec.

They led from the start and were followed home by Paris University in 6min 56sec, the University of London in 7min 07sec, Pavia of Italy in 7min 12sec, Yale University in 7min 28sec and the home team Xi-an in 8min 03sec.

The second regatta was held yesterday at Wuhan City, in the province of Hubei, in 40degC, in two races over 1km. Nicola Shanks replaced Morgan Shepherd in the crew for both races.

Otago University led from the start in the first race and won by 1.5 lengths from Paris and London.

Paris gave the Otago students a hurry-up in the second race and led to the 750m mark where the Otago crew put their foot down and came home strongly to win from Paris and Pavia.

Team manager Glen Sinclair told the Otago Daily Times from China the crew acclimatised for the hot temperatures in the environmental chamber, under the direction of senior lecturer in physical education Jim Cotter.

The team members were given ice vests that they wore before their races in the 40degC temperatures yesterday.

''We were the only crews that had ice vests,'' Sinclair said.

''They were the key to our success, especially coming from a cold Dunedin winter.''

First-year law student Jessica Hayes played a key role as stroke and applied pressure at key times during the three races.

A major contribution was made by first-year commerce student Ruby Tew who turned down a trial for the New Zealand under-23 team to concentrate on her studies for two years.

She is the daughter of New Zealand Rugby Football Union chief executive Steve Tew.

The coach of the crew was Natalie Matheson, who is studying for a PhD in neuroscience.