Maadi tribute to Sir Don Rowlands

New Zealand’s leading rowers will pay tribute to rowing legend Sir Don Rowlands in a row-past at Maadi on Saturday morning.

As thousands gather from across New Zealand for finals day at Karapiro, a  rowing figurehead  will be remembered.

The 9.15am tribute to Sir Don, who died last week, will be made up of 20 boats, rowed by 50 members of the 2015 NZ rowing team.

They will set off at one minute intervals in three groups, with smaller boats  followed by the bigger ones, travelling the full two kilometres of the Lake Karapiro course, finishing opposite the Don Rowlands Centre.

Sir Don was an Empire Games medallist, a national rowing selector and the chairman for the organising committee of the world champs at Lake Karapiro in 1978. He has had a great influence on many of the elite rowers of New Zealand.  

Sir Don was known for valuing all those who participated in rowing, both on the frontline and the behind the scenes volunteers.

Waipa Mayor Jim Mylchreest said Sir Don was a “fantastic supporter for New Zealand rowing and Karapiro domain and all the facilities there. He will be sadly missed, not by only the rowing community but [the whole of] Waipa.”

“Hes a real gentleman, not only in management and promoting rowing, [also] because of his business expertise as well. He was the sort of guy who would do anything out at the lake. He would roll his sleeves up and get out on the pond and clear weeds, anything  that was necessary to promote rowing.”

Olympic gold medallist Eric Murray said: “He’s had an amazing lifetime not only in sport but he took that into business as well. Having the business side has helped the rowing side, that synergy between the two has just been an amazing lifetime achievement for rowing.

“Basically a lot of people forget, they just see what is happening in the moment and they forget about the past people, [those] who have grown the sport and got funding for the sport, to turn it into what it is today. I think they need to learn more about what he brought to the sport.”

Olympic bronze medallist Juliette Drysdale is from the same West End club as Sir Don.

“He’s a phenomenal guy, he’s someone that I always looked up to. He’s done some amazing things, very selfless in everything he contributed to rowing. He was just truly a lovely person to be around.

“The very first thing he always did was thank the people around him, and attribute any success to them. In particular he would always thank his wife Coralie, which was always really lovely because she was always a support to him in everything that he did.

“We can relate to the older generation. Because effectively while the sport has changed, we now race in carbon boats and oars and they had wooden boats and oars. Effectively it’s exactly the same sport.

“So even though these are older people that we look up to, they have been through exactly the same things as all of us rowers. The same training [and] the same friendships within the crews. The same highs and lows in sport.”

Olympic gold medallist Mahe Drysdale has also been inspired by the humble life that Sir Don led. Mahe encouraged those athletes participating at Maadi this year”to read his book Listen, The Don Rowlands Leadership Guide, by Keith Davies.

“It’s an interesting read about Don and his mantras and gives a bit more details in what he actually did for the sport.

“The sport would definitely not be in the state  it is and Karapiro would not be as good as it is today without Don Rowlands driving the sport like he did.”