Drysdale starts golden day throwing up - Story - London 2012 - 3 Sport. Auckland Sporting Excellence Awards - Equal Winners. Two notable athletes could not be separated for the main prize at the 2008 Auckland Sporting Excellence awards held at Alexandra Park last night.
Rower Mahe Drysdale and tennis player Marina Erakovic were deemed to be of equal merit for the top award and shared top prize of dual Auckland Sporting Excellence award winners. Drysdale the Olympic single sculls bronze medalist won the Sportsman of the Year category after what can only be described as a dramatic finals race in Beijing. Drysdale was voted the winner ahead of Ironman Cameron Brown and All Black loose forward Jerome Kaino. While Erakovic, 20 improved her WTA world tennis ranking by over 100 places and had top results in the sport around the world including reaching the semifinals of the ASB Classic won the Sportswoman of the Year category ahead of Ironwoman Jo Lawn, Angela McMillan from aerobics and Louise Crome from Squash. Other category winners were Olympic swimmer Orinoco Faamausili-Banse in the Junior Sportsman of the Year.
Rowing: Stubborn streak runs in Drysdale's blood - Sport. There's no better place to start with the romantic, slightly mysterious, rise of Mahe Drysdale, world champion single sculler, than his name.
"Sometimes people expect me to be a Maori or Polynesian and are surprised when a tall white boy walks in the room," the 26-year-old Drysdale says. Mahe had already been conceived when his parents, Alan and Robin, visited the Seychelles and fell in love with the name of the main island, Mahe. It is now a name on everyone's lips.
Drysdale charged into sporting legend last week when he kicked off the haul of four gold medals at the world rowing championships in Japan. Drysdale's rise has been more speedboat than rowboat. There is no rowing in the family history, but Drysdale still contends, stoutly, that there is something in the blood which drives him to be something in the water. Drysdale's rowing career started with what university students might regard as a romantic weekend, the Easter tournament in Dunedin. He club rowed, then quit for his studies. Mahé Drysdale. Drysdale attended Tauranga Boys' College in Tauranga, New Zealand, then the University of Auckland.[3] He began rowing at university at the age of 18.
He gave up rowing to concentrate on his studies, but began rowing again after watching fellow New Zealander Rob Waddell win gold at the 2000 Olympic Games.[4] Drysdale is a member of the West End Rowing Club in Avondale, Auckland, New Zealand and Tideway Scullers, London. World Championships[edit] Drysdale began competing at World Cup level in 2002, in the New Zealand coxless four. After the 2004 Olympic Games, in which his New Zealand crew finished fifth in the final, Drysdale switched to the single scull, winning the 2005 World Championships at Gifu, Japan, despite having broken two vertebrae in a crash with a water skier earlier in the year.[5] Olympic Games[edit] Drysdale was officially selected as New Zealand's Olympic heavyweight sculler for the Beijing Olympics on 7 March 2008. New Zealand national championships[edit] Awards[edit]