Years preparing to put icing on cake

Hamish Bond.
Hamish Bond.
We continue our series on Otago's Olympians. Sports reporter Matt Smith talks to London 2012 gold medal-winning rower Hamish Bond.

MS: What are some of the things you learned from your successful 2012 Olympic campaign?

HB: Going into my third Olympics I guess I will be more prepared for all the hype that has the potential to be a bit overwhelming. I also know that on our day we should be very difficult to beat. You can take some confidence from that but the flipside is that it doesn't matter who you are, you still have to go out there and perform on the day.

Have you been able to pass on any of that info to some of the younger squad members, including Alistair?

I have tried to pass on a few things but at the end of the day you really need to strike your own path. Rowing New Zealand has held a number of seminar sessions where the senior athletes have shared their knowledge and experiences.

You and Eric Murray have been pretty much in each other's pockets as a pair - bar the occasional break - for seven years. How do you keep the partnership fresh?

After the 2013 world champs, I did start to feel a bit stale with it still being three years till Rio. That was a big reason for the time I have spent in the single over the last couple of summers.

We have proven to be pretty dogged and single-minded in our ability to strive for speed and form every year. It has been helpful to have continued winning in order to not have to ask any really hard questions.

With your winning margins across World Cup events always showing a gap between your boat and the rest, how do you drive yourself to keep on producing top-shelf results at the big regattas?

A mix of will to win and fear of losing. We know what we are capable of and want to do justice to our ability, all our training efforts and all the investment made in us from various people and organisations.

Have you been keeping an eye on the progress with the facilities in Rio, or do you just bang that to the back of the mind and deal with it when you get there?

The NZOC (New Zealand Olympic Committee) has made quite an effort to keep us up to date with the situation in Rio. It is clear that it is not going to hit the mark in terms of what was promised or expected but hopefully it will be enough to be functional.

We have made preparations for the water quality situation and Zika but we will most likely just have to be flexible and roll with the unexpected, which is sure to crop up.

When do you next enjoy some extended downtime, and what do you plan to do with it?

The Olympics will be the end of my season. I am planning on having a decent break to reassess after Rio regardless of the result.

This year my wife has been on a surgical training placement in Auckland while I have been training in Cambridge and then overseas so we have only seen each other for about a dozen weekends this year. So it would be nice to be able to be in the same place for a while.

Are you motivated by the feats of past New Zealand Olympians? Is there anyone you looked up to as a youngster?

I wouldn't say that I am motivated by it, but I think you can take inspiration from past performances. A sense of if they did it, then so can I.

Provided everything works out, what would success mean to Hamish Bond?

Eight years undefeated, far more than I would have ever envisioned when we started off in the pair.

It means the icing on the cake that has been prepared over the last four years.

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