By Michelle Pickles
An outbreak of gastroenteritis has swept through the rowing world championship in Slovenia but it has not affected the Kiwi rowers.
All Kiwi crews are on track for A finals, except the men’s eight who will now need to win their B final tonight to qualify for London.
No such problems for Eric Murray and Hamish Bond though who, despite an interrupted build up, are charging towards their third world title.
They may be training on a different lake, but come finals day on Lake Bled they will know the sign that will tell them there is just 500 metres to row.
“Once you start seeing that island out of your peripheral you start going ‘right, it’s all down hill from here and let’s take it home’,” says Murray.
The two time world champions are unbeaten in the pair since they got together in 2009.
But their build up to this world champs has been slightly disrupted.
Just over a month ago Murray made a mad dash home to New Zealand from his training base in Belgium, arriving just in time for the birth of his first child.
Ten days after Zachary Dane Murray was born his dad was on his way back to Europe.
“I’ve been on Skype every day getting pictures and the occasional message from the wife.
“She’s tired and I’m just trying to do the best I can from back here, sending the occasional gift of flowers and chocolates always goes well.”
And while Bond had initial reservations about the ten day break he now says it has not affected them.
“In [all] honesty it actually worked out quite well. Really we had quite a hard, long season already and then when Eric came back we sort of hit it straight off and pretty much got right back on speed, I don’t think we lost anything.”
And that will make them favourites to defend their title which is just another step towards their goal of becoming Olympic champions.
Kiwi women’s pair Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown looking to defend the title they won at Karapiro last year.
Haigh and Scown have already qualified for London after winning their semi final.
Despite having to settle for second at the last world cup the defending champions still have the pressure of heading into the final as one of the favourites.
Haigh says it is a different kind of pressure.
“Before it was like ‘wow, where have they come from?’ and everything was fun and new and now [we have] got people watching us and there is expectation,” says Haigh. “I think that we can rise to that challenge.”
Haigh and Scown are one of three Kiwi crews rowing in A finals tonight.
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