Rowing: Road mapped out all the way to Tokyo

Andrew Potter at the Otago University Rowing Club during the week. Photo by Stephen Jaquiery.
Andrew Potter at the Otago University Rowing Club during the week. Photo by Stephen Jaquiery.

Andrew Potter makes no secret that he wants to crack the big time.

The 21-year-old University of Otago law student will begin the busy start of the rowing season at the Canterbury championships on Lake Ruataniwha this weekend.

Representing Southern RPC and the Otago University Rowing Club, he will compete in the men's open coxless pair, double sculls and quadruple sculls.

Good performances in the three races will bode well for the national championships on Lake Karapiro, where he aims to win all three next month.

All going well, he hopes to earn a trial and earn selection in the New Zealand under-23 squad.

"I sort of want to focus on making that New Zealand team this year,'' Potter said.

"Often if you get into that, you're in the pickings to be taken up to that elite team. Do that for a few years and then I could be thinking [2020] Tokyo Olympics.''

Potter, who is originally from Napier, has already represented New Zealand at junior level.

He won silver behind Australia as a member of the coxed four crew at the junior world championships in England in 2011.

Five years later, Potter is as focused as ever to succeed in the sport he started as a year 10 pupil at Napier Boys' High School.

"Me and my mate [Tom Jenkins] just joined in to stay fit and get involved in something at school,'' he said.

"We had a bit of luck one season and kept at it. I just enjoyed the culture. You make good friends when you row, and it's hard work.''

Potter and Jenkins won gold in the under-18 boys coxless pair at the Maadi Cup in 2011 and 2012, and were also a part of their school's victorious under-17 boys coxed four in 2011.

Potter, who graduated from the high performance Pathway to Podium programme last year, moved to Dunedin in 2013 to study law, joining the university's rowing club at the same time.

He is going into his third season as a member of the Southern RPC high performance squad, which has him training in Christchurch when he is not in Dunedin studying.

"I don't get home too often, just for Christmas,'' Potter said.

He and the rest of the Southern RPC squad train twice a day, six times a week.

Most mornings he is out on the Waimakariri River, while afternoons are spent in the gym or on the erg machines.

While he dons the Southern RPC uniform at regattas, he does have an undersuit with the Otago University Rowing Club's emblem on it.

Potter will line up in the coxless pair and double sculls with Timaru's Cameron Crampton this weekend and the pair will join Bryce Abernethy (Otago Rowing Club) and Matthew Mesman (Canterbury Rowing Club) in the quadruple scull.

Weather has wreaked havoc at the Canterbury championships the past few years, but the forecast this weekend appears more settled.

Potter and Crampton will be on the water at 7.30am this morning, when the regatta opens with the open men's coxless pair heats.

It is scheduled to wrap up at 1pm tomorrow.

Potter will be back in Dunedin for his final year of study after the national championships, which finish on February 21.

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