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No turning back for Olympic champion

Debate will rage about the retiring rower’s place among New Zealand’s sporting greats, but his long-time former teammate has no doubts. Aaron Goile reports.

David Long

‘‘He’s definitely the best rower we’ve ever produced. He’s definitely right up there with the best Olympians New Zealand’s ever produced.’’

That’s how the retiring Hamish Bond stacks up in the eyes of long-time former crew-mate Eric Murray, who is still blown away by just what he saw his fiercely competitive friend achieved on the water.

Bond, 35, yesterday drew the curtain on his rowing career, highlighted by eight world championship titles and three successive Olympic gold medals, along with a stunning 69-race unbeaten streak in the men’s pair.

The man he teamed so sublimely with – never losing a race together and posting world best times in both the pair and coxed pair that still stand today – felt fortunate to be on board for the ride.

‘‘For him to to do what he did, for such a

After Sir Steve Redgrave won his fourth consecutive gold medal at the Olympics he famously said: ‘‘Anybody who sees me in a boat has my permission to shoot me.’’ Four years later he won a fifth at the Sydney Olympics.

Hamish Bond retired yesterday with three Olympics golds around his neck and while he feels the same sentiments as Redgrave did in Atlanta in 1996, there’s definitely no way he’s going to change his mind.

‘‘I was talking to Rob Waddell, our chef de mission for the last couple of Olympics, to let him know that I was retiring today,’’ Bond told Stuff at his farewell event at the NZOC offices in Auckland yesterday.

‘‘He made mention that it’s only three years until Paris. I don’t know exactly what my long period of time, it is something that is really hard to get your head around how good the guy actually was,’’ Murray told Stuff, amazed ‘‘just to see what a human could actually produce’’.

‘‘The thing with Hamish was, he wasn’t an overbearing figure. When you looked at him on the podium against all the other rowers, he’s six inches shorter, he’s about 10 kilograms or more lighter, and you were like, ‘Wow, OK’.

‘‘But he just had this phenomenal capacity in his endurance and his physiology, it just set him apart from so many other people. And he just managed to be able to find his niche of where he was able to physically push himself in a sport, and he found that with rowing.’’

Coupled with the physical ability, though, came a drive and determination that made words were, but they were to the same effect.

‘‘If you do see me near a boat, you don’t have to shoot me, but you need to take me in for a serious intervention.’’

With it being a shorter than usual gap between the Tokyo and Paris Olympics, it did give Bond more to mull over about retirement than otherwise would have been the case.

Even though he turns 36 next month, he believes his body would have been up for it. But perhaps his mind wasn’t.

‘‘You always have that lunatic factor in your head where you say could I do it?’’ Bond said.

‘‘I’d like to think that physically I’ll still be OK in a couple of years’ time.

‘‘But the reality is that mentally, the last couple of years I did have to push myself hard and that was only going to get harder with more time

Bond a real world-beater. And Murray got a first-hand view.

‘‘Hamish was very much the pessimist in the partnership. He was always like, ‘We’ve got to get it right, something could go wrong’. Just always trying to find that perfection and work towards it.’’

Bond, who Murray felt could have carved out a superb career in the single scull had he wanted to, was by no means some superman spared of pre-race jitters.

‘‘You see Hamish and he’s quite a confident, open person, but sitting in the changing sheds or wherever we’re warming up an hour before, he’s as nervous as any other person out there – the worry and anxiety and that trepidation, the whole works,’’ he said.

‘‘But it was just a matter of turning the switch on at the right time for race time, and commitments outside of the sport.’’

In rowing training is relentless and you only aim to peak a few times a year.

Eric Murray, left, with Hamish Bond

‘‘It is . . . really hard to get your head around how good the guy actually was.’’

then Hamish Bond the rower came out, and, he was, literally, unbeatable.’’

Bond ends his career behind only Dame Lisa Carrington (five) and Ian Ferguson (four) in terms of Olympic gold medals for New Zealand, equal with Paul MacDonald and Sir Peter Snell, while only seven rowers in history (men or women) have stood on top of the Olympic podium more times.

‘‘Obviously you’ve got Sir Steve Redgrave who did five Olympic gold medals, so he’ll never be touched,’’ Murray said. ‘‘But Hamish is right up there, in the top five, at least, rowers in the world.’’

Murray felt Bond could have added to his collection had he carried on to Paris in 2024, but, with him having three kids under four, knew this shaped as the perfect time for him to hang up the oars.

Swimming and track cycling are similar and to keep going for so long, training for day after day, year after year, requires great mental strength.

To officially retire five months after the Olympics does seem unusual. Redgrave made his ‘shoot me’ comment when he was still in the boat in Atlanta.

While Bond mulled over his future he kept training, knowing that if he stopped for a long period, there was definitely no way back.

‘‘One of the hardest things about the transition from being an athlete is that I’ve taken great pride in knowing that in my given pursuit, I’m one of, if not the best, in the world,’’ he said. ‘‘To let that melt away is going to be a change. To know that I can’t just turn up and put in a world beating performance.

‘‘I guess I’m trying to slowly move on to what I’m doing. On a day to day level, I’ve got three young children, so I’ve found that any free time I have is easily soaked up by them.’’

Bond retires with three Olympic gold medals, and eight from world championships. He also has a bronze medal picked up in the cycling time trial from the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018, captured during a brief time when he swapped pedals for oars.

‘‘It was special,’’ he said of his cycling medal. ‘‘I guess I traded off my reputation as a rower to a certain extent and was afforded opportunities with that.

‘‘To get to where I did in cycling in a short space of time, I never intended that when first starting with it after Rio.

‘‘I didn’t reach the absolute ceiling, but I got a fair idea of where it was.’’

With rowing, he certainly reached his ceiling. Which was the top of the world.

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2022-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://stuff.pressreader.com/article/282097755093870

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