Nice to see Mum and Dad

SENT TO The daily post 20.6.10

John Paul College student and Rotorua  rower, Nigel Van Den Akker was happy to see his parents at the 3^rd Winter Rowing Series at Lake Karapiro. He is living at the High Performance Rowing NZ Training Centre at Karapiro and doesn’t  see Mum and Dad very often.

Nigel had two  2km races on the Friday which “went alright - but  we have done better “ he said “. We got the 3rd best junior prognostic but we  hoped for better. Today's racing went way better at we did a way better time 6.32 so tomorrow we are wanting to get into the 6.20s”

Now wearing the 2010 NZ Junior Team uniform, Van Den Akker has lost a little over 2kg but gained a lot of muscle composition says Bruce Holden , Rowing NZ Coach of the Junior Mens Coxed Four . Holden and the four will be leaving for the 2010 Junior World Rowing Championships in  Racice, Czech Republic on the 21^st July.

The athletes nutrition and weight is monitored very carefully. “ The crew is being weighed every week . It is important they do not lose weight or get sick at this stage” Coach Holden said.  “There are technical points to fine tune which will improve the crew,” Bruce Holden added “but I’m happy - they are working towards 6:26 minutes (for a 2000m timed training)at the moment and I’ll be looking for 6:20 once they are overseas”. Once in Europe things change-the weather is warmer and the water conditions are hopefully better. The adrenalin of the international  event cannot be simulated and also adds speed to the boat  .