The ‘one-armed’ rower at the Maadi Cup
Lachie Osikai-Wilson of Shirley Boys’ High School may not be able to row but he still made the trip from Christchurch with the rest of his team.
Among a crowd of rowers, one young man sticks out like a sore thumb, or, more accurately, sore arm.
Injury struck 14-year-old rower, Lachie Osikai-Wilson less than a week before the Aon Maadi Cup, the biggest rowing competition of the year, at Karapiro outside Cambridge.
Lachie, a member of the Shirley Boys’ High School team, is not letting his injury get him down. He may not be able to compete, but he made sure he travelled from Christchurch to support his team.
“I’ll row with one arm,” Lachie boasts to his team with his left arm strapped in a sling.
Lachie said that after pulling a muscle, and the injury getting progressively worse to the point of a ride to hospital in an ambulance, he realised months of training was for naught and there was no chance he would be able to row alongside his team.
He had hoped to participate in the “double, an eights, a quad, and an octuple”. Now his seat has been filled by a schoolmate.
While disappointed he is in the crowd on the dam bank, Lachie tries to keep his hopes up.
“It’s a good experience being up here, but it is kind of sad because we had the fastest qualifying time for the doubles.”
The team know their chances for winning at the biggest competition in the Southern Hemisphere have been hurt along with Lachie.
As a team, they understand that injuries happen and that they won’t be at 100 percent.
One member of the team said “we just want to make a final,” to which the rest chimed in their agreement.
