Kristen Froude has been selected in the national World Beach Sprint rowing team for the World Coastal Beach Sprint Finals in Genoa, Italy.
But Italy could just be a taster for Olympics glory.
Coastal rowing is set to be a sport at the Los Angeles games in 2028.
There is one spot available on a quad crew for the world champs in September, with the other three members already pre-selected on the mixed gender crew. Olympian gold medallists Emma Twigg and Joe Sullivan have been named in the squad.
Coastal rowing can involve long-form endurance rows or "beach sprints".
As the name suggests, the beach sprints race begins on the beach, and is a one-against-one elimination race — a short sprint on the beach to the boat, row 250m, around the turning buoy back to the beach, and a final sprint to the finish.
Froude, who switched codes from flat-rowing to beach sprinting, made the team which was announced at trials at Auckland’s Orewa Beach last Saturday.
The opportunity had been brewing since the national championships in Wellington last month, where she won the open singles competition.
Froude thought it was a time for a change of codes after 16 years of flat-water rowing.
"I didn’t really want to go back to flat-water rowing any more ... I was a bit done with it and needed something new and refreshing."
A friend suggested beach sprinting as an alternative option; a month later she was off to Italy.
In 2022, she made her mark in the code after being selected to compete in the women’s squad at the World Cup and Henley Royal Regatta.
Sickness barred her selection to the World Cup squad the following year, but she got the call-up to the 2023 World Champs in Italy, where the quad team earned a bronze medal.
Switching codes meant she needed to learn different techniques and skills.
"It’s more of a sprint.
"Flat-water, or normal rowing, is very much an endurance race ... where beach sprint is running up the sand, getting in the boat, then you slalom around two buoys and do a 180 [degree turn] around the last buoy and you row all the way back, jump out of the boat and sprint to the finish line — it’s about 500m all up," Froude said.
"You need to be really strong to get through the waves going out and strong enough to keep on the waves on the way back."
She was Cambridge-based, but her training regime was now significantly different from that for flat-water rowing.
"There’s a lot less kms, but a lot more intensity."
Local beach volleyball courts offered the opportunity to sprint-train in loose sand, while the east coast of the North Island offered loose sand similar to European beaches, and the west coast a harder terrain.
"It’s good to have a practice on all types of sand," she said.
"There’s a lot of training and figuring it out as you go.
"It’s still a very new sport, but it’s also very exciting because it’s going to be in the next Olympics," Froude said.
The sport was introduced to the rowing fraternity in Sweden about 10 years ago.
With the sport coming into the Olympics, Rowing New Zealand expected more interest from rowers over the next couple of years.
