He flew off this week with the New Zealand team to Canada, where the U19, U23 and senior worlds for non-Olympic boat classes are being held at the Royal Canadian Henley rowing course at St Catharines in Ontario, from August 18.
Marley, 18, has just finished six weeks’ training on Cambridge’s Lake Karapiro, which he says "has definitely been one of my bestbuilds".
"I reckon I’ve managed to really time everything in terms of just how I’ve peaked, and I’m just feeling really strong."
He’ll be teaming up for his double sculls for the first time with James Dimock from Auckland’s Macleans College, who’s a year behind him.
James won the U18 single sculls at this year’s national secondary schools Maadi Cup regatta, the event Marley won last year.
At last year’s U19 worlds, in Paris, Marley crewed for the NZ quad who just narrowly missed out on the finals.
He says with so many other rowers in Canada, and therefore more spectators, "it’s going to be really, really impressive".
To help with fundraising, his grandmother, renowned Kiwi sculptor Virginia King, has gifted him a sculpture for auctioning off from her ‘Phantom Fleet’ work that won ‘people’s choice’ award at Waiheke Island’s Sculpture on the Gulf exhibition in 2017 — King also sculpted the ‘Wakatipu Vessel’ art piece installed in Queenstown’s St Omer Park.
"She knows what a huge commitment it is for our whole family to chase these goals," he says.
Meanwhile, Marley will return for two weeks after the worlds before flying out to Seattle, in the United States, to start a four-year rowing scholarship at the University of Washington.
