There was one spot available on a quad crew, with the other three members already pre-selected on the mixed gender crew.
Kristen Froude, who switched codes from flat-rowing to beach sprinting, will be vying for a spot on the national team during the trials being held at Auckland’s Orewa Beach this Saturday.
The opportunity had been brewing since the national championships in Wellington at the start of the month, where she won the open singles competition.
Froude thought it was a time for a change of codes after 16 years of flat-water rowing.
"I didn’t really want to go back to flat water rowing any more ... I was a bit done with it and needed something new and refreshing."
A friend suggested beach sprinting as an alternative option; a month later she was off to Italy.
In 2022, she made her mark in the code after being selected to compete in the women’s squad at the World Cup and Henley Royal Regatta.
Sickness barred her selection to the World Cup squad the following year, but she got the call up to the 2023 World Champs in Italy where the quad team earned a bronze medal.
Switching codes meant she needed to learn different techniques and skills.
"Flat water, or normal rowing, is very much an endurance race ... where beach sprint is running up the sand, getting in the boat, then you slalom around two buoys and do a 180 [degree turn] around the last buoy and you row all the way back, jump out of the boat and sprint to the finish line — it’s about 500m all up," Froude said.
"You need to be really strong to get through the waves going out and strong enough to keep on the waves on the way back."
She was still Cambridge-based, but her training regime was now significantly different from that for flat water rowing.
"There’s a lot less k’s, but a lot more intensity."
Local beach volley-ball courts offered the opportunity to sprint-train in loose sand, while the east coast offered loose sand similar to European beaches, and the west coast a harder terrain.
"It’s good to have a practice on all types of sand," she said.
"There’s a lot of training and figuring it out as you go.
"It’s still a very new sport, but it’s also very exciting because it’s going to be in the next Olympics (2028 Los Angeles)," Froude said.
The sport was introduced to the rowing fraternity in Sweden circa 2013.
By Toni McDonald
