The Central Otago squad produced a stellar display on the Lake Karapiro choppy waters, picking up five medals at the national championships yesterday.
Rowers were tested in challenging conditions across the opening finals day, with wind gusts blowing across the Cambridge lake.
Dunstan bagged the top two podium spots in the men’s senior double sculls.
Henry Clatworthy and Matthew O’Meara won gold in 6min 56.80sec and Charlie Manser — who was a standout for Wakatipu High School at Maadi Cup in 2025 — and Harry Lightfoot were hot on their heels, winning silver in 6min 58.27sec.
Bella Breen and Madison Neale followed up by winning gold in the women’s senior double sculls in 7min 44.43sec.
Lightfoot grabbed another medal in the afternoon, hopping in the boat alongside Harrison Thode, Oliver Hamilton, Lewis Meates, Josh Bartlett, Luke Brock, Sebastian Watson, Angus Loe and Kate Baskerville to win silver in the men’s senior coxed eight in 6min 21.53sec.
They put in the hard yards through the second 500m to get them into medal contention.
Katharina Hoffmann, Lucy Clark, Amy Paterson and Emer Bryant won bronze in the women’s club coxless quad sculls in 7min 45.49sec.
Oamaru also had a great opening finals day in the four and quad.
Aidan O’Docherty, Jakob Rohrbach, Ike Newlands-Carter, Boston Irving-Dowling and Greer Dickson won silver in the men’s intermediate coxed quad sculls in 7min 08.21sec.
Dickson, who was the men’s cox, jumped in the boat with Grace Webster, Matilda Isbister, Summer Brosnan and Hunter McLay to collect her second silver of the day in the women’s novice coxed four.
They finished in 8min 51.70sec, ahead of fellow Oamaru crew Leah Kofoed, Kaiah Rawson, Milly Paterson, Charliee Burnett and Isla Kappely, who won bronze in 9min 06.62sec.
Otago rower Alexander Hattrell won silver in the men’s club single sculls in 8min 42.54sec.
Otago rowers get their final chance to grab some silverware when the national championships wrap up today.
