June 8, 2024 • 17 mins
Former Olympian Hamish Bond has a long list of accomplishments in the world of cycling and rowing.
He's among one of two New Zealanders to have won gold in three separate events, the other being Lisa Carrington.
He joined Piney to discuss his Olympic accomplishments ahead of the 2024 Olympics.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talks, EDB, New Zealand and.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
The Home Straight Land Jews one Gold.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Weekend Sport Road to Paris twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What the Olympic Games now just seven weeks away? We
continue our Road to Paris feature every Sunday at a
round about this time we remember some of our great
Olympians and Olympic moments. Excuse me. Hamish Bond is one
of only two New Zealanders, along with Lisa Carrington, to
have won gold medals at three separate Olympic Games. Bond
(00:50):
and Murray. They are now Olympic champions, Eric Murray and
Haymak's Bond.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
They've crossed first. They are the world champions. They are
now the Olympic champions.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Bond and Murray, New Zealand. They are the perfect pair.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Hamish Bond won back to back Olympic gold medals and
the men's pair with Eric Murray at London twenty twelve.
That was that commentary there and then again at Rio
in twenty sixteen. Then Hamish Bond became an integral member
of the men's eight who won gold at the Tokyo
Olympics in twenty twenty one. After the Rio Games, though,
he took a break from rowing and took up road cycling,
(01:32):
and at the twenty eighteen Commonwealth Games on the Gold
Coast he won a bronze medal in the time trial.
In twenty thirteen, he was made a member of the
New Zealand Order of Merit and last year was promoted
to Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. One
of our truly great Olympians. Hamish Bond is with us. Hamish,
thanks for taking the time. Can I start actually at
(01:54):
the most recent Olympics in Tokyo and winning gold in
the eight New Zealand's first gold medal in the Olympic
men's eight since nineteen seventy two. How did winning that
gold medal come pair with everything else that you've achieved
in your career?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah? I think it was very special, to be honest,
A big motivation coming back to rowing from my cycling
student was getting the mendate over the line or you know,
I guess seeing what we could do. It had been
sort of a glaring omission from the success that rowing
rowing in New Zealand has had over the last sort
(02:32):
of twenty years, I guess, kicking off the generation with
Robert Dale, the Everswindell, Twins, Mahe Eric and myself and
numerous other successes. But the men dat is sort of
a well men's gen women of the Blue Ribbon events,
and it's something that we hadn't really even had a
shot at, I suppose previously, So that was a huge
(02:54):
challenge and growing up as a rower, I was of
I guess coming through the generation where a lot of
the coaches were contemporaries with guys who wrote at the
nineteen seventy two Olympics and won New Jonge's last gold medal.
So I'd always heard about, you know, the eight and
Communicaid and success of what that would be like. So
(03:18):
that was a huge carrot, and to actually achieve it was,
you know, certainly I think definitely a crown in It
couldn't be a more fitting I guess, crown and glory
for my career.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I suppose How different was it from rowing in the pair?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah, it turned out to be quite different from a
technical sense, I suppose I went into it thinking, you know,
I know how to row, if I can just get
enough guys to sort of understand my philosophies and what
Eric and I did so well, then that can only
you know, go well. And it turned out that it
(03:57):
didn't actually pan out that way. I think there was
a lot of philosophy that did work well. But ultimately
the eight I think it's a lot faster moving boat
and you have to be quicker. We call it the
catch where you place the blade in the water, and
just a more aggressive, quicker style as opposed to a
more efficient lopie floating style, which I think Eric and
(04:20):
I rode in the pier. So I think I ended
up having to change a little bit and we all
sort of fell into a style eventually that worked for
us as a group. And I don't really know, you know,
if you had say eight Eric and I, eight of
Eric and I in the boat, could we have made
our style from the peer work, or if it was
just that wouldn't work in an eight. But we suddenly
(04:41):
found something in the lead up to the Olympics that
we identified as you know, this is our best chance
of winning. And it was quite different, you know, a
lot more aggressive, and also you have so many more
moving parts. You know, you've got eight people, eight opinions.
Everyone's got to be up and for it on the day,
So yeah, far more challenges. I mean, I thought Eric
(05:03):
was hard enough, but I probably took it for granted
to be hones in terms of you know, Eric was
particularly very very consistent. You know, he was always there,
he was always ready to train, and he was a
phenomenal trainer. And you know the guys in the eight
were as well, but they didn't have the I guess
perhaps experience at that high level for so long, and
(05:25):
you know, we took a little bit of time to
perhaps adjust expectations as to what was required to win
on the Olympic stage.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
A wonderful achievement, as you say, to to crown your
elite career. Can we talk about your incredible success and
the men's pair unbeaten internationally from two thousand and nine
until twenty sixteen, sixty nine consecutive race wins. Actually, can
you remember the first time you met Eric Murray?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I guess I was probably more aware of him for
a while and then perhaps meet him, I would have
known who he was. Eric was a few years older
than me, so he was already in the New Zealand
elite team, and I was up and coming through the
junior under nineteen under two twenty three, so I would
have been aware of who he was and not necessarily
have met him. But I guess my first, I suppose
full time introduction was we were I was nineteen years
(06:18):
old and first made the senior team in two thousand
and six and was in a boat where Eric the
men's four, and that was the first time that I
came across him, And to be honest, we didn't. Well,
it's not that I probably didn't get the opportunity. He
probably I was sort of insignificant. I suppose we were
in the same boat, but I was the newbe nineteen
year olds, so it was easy to blame everything going
(06:38):
wrong on me. So I know Eric and I probably
didn't get off on the on the best foot. But
you know, I certainly over those years in the four,
I guess crow to appreciate his training ability, and maybe
I would say he mellowed out a little bit. And then, yeah,
we obviously teamed up after three years in the four.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And how did that come about? Had he had he
started to tolerate you pie there, actually realized you were
a pretty good roller. They added the move to the
pair come about.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think I took much tolerating.
I think it was much more the other way around.
But as a nineteen year old versus one hundred and
five kilo twenty two twenty three year old, you know
I wasn't I was a fly. You know, he could
have just swadded me away. So I think over those
three years in the four A obviously and Derek's respect,
and you know, if you beat him a few times,
(07:31):
you can't help but take notice, either on the water
or on the rhyme machine. That's where a lot of
direct comparisons get made. And you know, you take him
down a couple of times on the row machine, you
can't help but take notice. In terms of how we
joined up as a combination, we were world champions in
the four and two thousand and seven and then went
into the Olympic Games with high hopes of the medal
(07:53):
but didn't pan out. And I suppose one of those
things you look back on, although very disappointing at the time,
perhaps that was, you know, integral to our success in
the subsequent years was having I guess that failure and
been able to rise from the ashes ashes as it
were so out of before. You know, everyone sort of
(08:15):
had a bit of a break, and I think two
of the guys had decided on sort of twelve month
long breaks. But Eric and I had trained together in
the Pier Wilson before and had always gone well, and
more or less I looked around the squad and made
an assessment, you know what boat class should I target?
What's my best chance of success? And decided that, you know,
(08:37):
Eric and I were somewhat of a proven quantity, and yeah,
I pretty much wrote him an email or wrote his
wife and at the time an email and said, you know,
can let's have a shot at this, And yeah, she
gave us a two year pass at that point.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
With a few a few years to reflect. What were
the key ingredients for that incredible consistency that sustained success
over so many years, so many regattas.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, there's lots of things that have that made up
I guess the unbeaten streak. There's certainly an element of luck,
you know, those we sort of had. I certainly had
my fair share of injuries over that period, but nothing
that sort of struck at a really detrimental time. I think,
first and foremost, the biggest key to our success was
(09:25):
that I would in my opinion, Eric and I were
probably two of the top five physical just physical specimens
or attributes capabilities in world rowing. So obviously you have
a number of boat classes, but of all the rowers internationally,
I would say Eric and I weld two have probably
the top five. And when you take that talent and
(09:49):
you've just happened to be in the same country at
the same time, it's I felt as that we wrote
technically relatively well, but I think at a large part
of it that we were physically superior to any of
our opposition that we ever came up against. They don't
if you look at two kilometer rowing schools, I'm not
(10:09):
aware of any of our competitors ever going faster than
one of us were to learn both of us. So
you know, when you had that together, we just had
to sort of row half well. And I suppose you
tending that up. We weren't that physical. You know, we
didn't have those capabilities aren't God given, you know, that's
(10:29):
the nature of rowing. You have to earn those stripes
through sheer, hard training. The talent has just been able
to turn up day after day, and yeah, we got
to a point I suppose. Yeah, we were very mentally strong.
We had strong belief in our abilities. We've proven it
to ourselves. We had two different coaches over that period
(10:51):
and both of those students were probably you know, the
right people at the right time. Dick Tonks for the
first four years was a very hard taskmaster and I
wouldn't say I enjoyed a lot of it, but it
was the foundation of us as athletes. And then the
subsequent four years with Noel Donaldson who came over from
Australia to coach us. You know, he was more of
(11:12):
a He coached us, but it was also sort of
man management as well, making sure we didn't get too
full of our boots and you know, he kept us,
I guess grounded and kept moving forward and ultimately just
our own personal drive to be the best in the
world and not be complacent. I think that was We're
hugely competitive as much against each other, know, we were
(11:36):
competitive against each other and against all the other members
in the New Zealand squad, and then that manifested itself internationally.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Did the two of you ever disagree on things?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Certainly, Yeah, no we did, but know you often asked
us to speak at I guess business or talk to
business people and that sort of thing. And I often
suggest that the best conflict resolution scheme is to never lose.
So that's certainly my takeaway is that perhaps we didn't
(12:06):
have to ask ourselves really hard questions because we never
did lose. But we definitely had disagreements. But I suppose
you always understood that usually whatever either of us was
putting forward was just what we believed would make the
boat go fastest. And you know, when it's coming from
the right place, you know there's you know, you can
(12:28):
sort of move forward or off that. And we did
entertain each other's suggestions, and I think we were sort
of quite young and yang and to be honest, Eric
is very I don't know what the word is forgiving.
You know, nothing really phases us in too much. I
could have clipped them around the air or not what
ever would But and we always left it on the water,
(12:49):
you know, like we didn't really we never really dwelled
on things too long, I suppose, and just moved on.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Was twenty sixteen always going to be it for the
two of you as a combo? Was that the natural
finishing point for the two of you and the pair.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I think it was a natural finishing point. I don't
think we spoke about it in the lead up that
you know this is going to be it. We sort
of left that open. You didn't want to add that
extra pressure to it, I suppose, but I think I
don't know if the writing was on the wall. But
mentally I was with my move to cycling, you know,
mentally I was ready for a break. I suppose we
(13:26):
had that build up to the London getting the first
gold and then Rio sort of felt like, you know,
proving it wasn't a fluke, and we still had enough
juice to tackle that four years. But I think it
would have been a tall ask to go another four
years in the same combination. And it's not that we
weren't getting on, but I think the word compromises starting
(13:47):
to creep into training, and to me, don't I don't
like to be there if I'm not at my best
or we're not at our best as a combination, and
it was sort of felt like we were adding straws
to a camel's back, and you know, we weren't quite
sure which compromise it was going to be there. The
one that was too much, and then we were into
our best and we did get tipped over. So I
(14:09):
suddenly felt the pressure of you know, eight years, I guess,
and that was in the lead up to where other
competitors it was just another race for them, But for me,
I was certainly aware that we sort of had eight
years riding on every single race. You know, it could
be relatively insignificant race in the back blocks of Poland
(14:29):
or something, but we had eight years riding on there,
and it wouldn't have necessarily well it would have, it
wouldn't have been the same if we had lost ultimately,
So you know, I was aware of that, and yeah,
mentally probably ready for a break. And Eric, I think,
with his family and everything, he was making quite a
few sacrifices. You know, his son has autism, and he
(14:51):
wanted to be more offer, be more available I suppose
to support him through that. So yeah, I think it
was in some ways a natural finishing point.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Eric Murray once said to me that he'd never met
anybody who was able to endure as much severe discomfort
all the way up to excruciating pain as you could.
What was it the heart of that?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, I mean I think, to be honest, Eric can
do that fairly well himself, and I guess that was
part of the key. But yeah, I think it's practice.
You know, you go, you go to those tough places
often enough in training and it becomes slightly less daunting,
and you know you're suffering, you're you're on another person's ten,
(15:37):
but for you it's only in a seven, you know,
and you realize that you can live there. For ye know,
I can say I'm struggling, but I know, like I
can handle this another five minutes, or I can handle
another two minutes, and you just and more often you
go to the I guess the dark places. You become
more comfortable being uncomfortable. But yeah, it's never easy, and
(15:58):
you know, you come up with different strategies around. No,
I can't think I'm pretty hard on myself, to be honest,
when you reflect back lot of I've given myself a
few mental telling offs, and I call myself various names
in my head when I think about not necessarily giving up.
But yeah, like I did. I used to thrive off
(16:21):
knowing that I could and did do things that other
people wouldn't, and training in particularly the that I would
go Yeah, I did thrive off that. Yeah, I would
tell myself, you know that no one else is doing this,
you know, I things like that, and yeah, I think
it just accumulated over time, pretty stubborn. And yeah, I
(16:46):
think ultimately it started. I got allowed of self worth
out of being good at rowing, and you know that's
a fairly big motivator, Haim.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
It's just been such a pleasure catching up with you
and wandering about memory laying, getting an insight into the
reasons behind your incredible success both in the pair and
in the eight as well. And now you've got the
America's cap to look for two now as a cyclaw
for Team New Zealand, so that'll get the competitive juices
flying once again, I'm sure. But thank you for joining
us this afternoon to be part of our Road to
(17:16):
Paris feature. That is Hamish Bond, one of just two
New Zealanders, along with Dame Lisa Carrington, two have won
gold medals at three separate Olympic game.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to News Talk zed B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talks, EDB, New Zealand and.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
The Home Straight Land Jews one Gold.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Weekend Sport Road to Paris twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What the Olympic Games now just seven weeks away? We
continue our Road to Paris feature every Sunday at a
round about this time we remember some of our great
Olympians and Olympic moments. Excuse me. Hamish Bond is one
of only two New Zealanders, along with Lisa Carrington, to
have won gold medals at three separate Olympic Games. Bond
(00:50):
and Murray. They are now Olympic champions, Eric Murray and
Haymak's Bond.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
They've crossed first. They are the world champions. They are
now the Olympic champions.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Bond and Murray, New Zealand. They are the perfect pair.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Hamish Bond won back to back Olympic gold medals and
the men's pair with Eric Murray at London twenty twelve.
That was that commentary there and then again at Rio
in twenty sixteen. Then Hamish Bond became an integral member
of the men's eight who won gold at the Tokyo
Olympics in twenty twenty one. After the Rio Games, though,
he took a break from rowing and took up road cycling,
(01:32):
and at the twenty eighteen Commonwealth Games on the Gold
Coast he won a bronze medal in the time trial.
In twenty thirteen, he was made a member of the
New Zealand Order of Merit and last year was promoted
to Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. One
of our truly great Olympians. Hamish Bond is with us. Hamish,
thanks for taking the time. Can I start actually at
(01:54):
the most recent Olympics in Tokyo and winning gold in
the eight New Zealand's first gold medal in the Olympic
men's eight since nineteen seventy two. How did winning that
gold medal come pair with everything else that you've achieved
in your career?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah? I think it was very special, to be honest,
A big motivation coming back to rowing from my cycling
student was getting the mendate over the line or you know,
I guess seeing what we could do. It had been
sort of a glaring omission from the success that rowing
rowing in New Zealand has had over the last sort
(02:32):
of twenty years, I guess, kicking off the generation with
Robert Dale, the Everswindell, Twins, Mahe Eric and myself and
numerous other successes. But the men dat is sort of
a well men's gen women of the Blue Ribbon events,
and it's something that we hadn't really even had a
shot at, I suppose previously, So that was a huge
(02:54):
challenge and growing up as a rower, I was of
I guess coming through the generation where a lot of
the coaches were contemporaries with guys who wrote at the
nineteen seventy two Olympics and won New Jonge's last gold medal.
So I'd always heard about, you know, the eight and
Communicaid and success of what that would be like. So
(03:18):
that was a huge carrot, and to actually achieve it was,
you know, certainly I think definitely a crown in It
couldn't be a more fitting I guess, crown and glory
for my career.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I suppose How different was it from rowing in the pair?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah, it turned out to be quite different from a
technical sense, I suppose I went into it thinking, you know,
I know how to row, if I can just get
enough guys to sort of understand my philosophies and what
Eric and I did so well, then that can only
you know, go well. And it turned out that it
(03:57):
didn't actually pan out that way. I think there was
a lot of philosophy that did work well. But ultimately
the eight I think it's a lot faster moving boat
and you have to be quicker. We call it the
catch where you place the blade in the water, and
just a more aggressive, quicker style as opposed to a
more efficient lopie floating style, which I think Eric and
(04:20):
I rode in the pier. So I think I ended
up having to change a little bit and we all
sort of fell into a style eventually that worked for
us as a group. And I don't really know, you know,
if you had say eight Eric and I, eight of
Eric and I in the boat, could we have made
our style from the peer work, or if it was
just that wouldn't work in an eight. But we suddenly
(04:41):
found something in the lead up to the Olympics that
we identified as you know, this is our best chance
of winning. And it was quite different, you know, a
lot more aggressive, and also you have so many more
moving parts. You know, you've got eight people, eight opinions.
Everyone's got to be up and for it on the day,
So yeah, far more challenges. I mean, I thought Eric
(05:03):
was hard enough, but I probably took it for granted
to be hones in terms of you know, Eric was
particularly very very consistent. You know, he was always there,
he was always ready to train, and he was a
phenomenal trainer. And you know the guys in the eight
were as well, but they didn't have the I guess
perhaps experience at that high level for so long, and
(05:25):
you know, we took a little bit of time to
perhaps adjust expectations as to what was required to win
on the Olympic stage.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
A wonderful achievement, as you say, to to crown your
elite career. Can we talk about your incredible success and
the men's pair unbeaten internationally from two thousand and nine
until twenty sixteen, sixty nine consecutive race wins. Actually, can
you remember the first time you met Eric Murray?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I guess I was probably more aware of him for
a while and then perhaps meet him, I would have
known who he was. Eric was a few years older
than me, so he was already in the New Zealand
elite team, and I was up and coming through the
junior under nineteen under two twenty three, so I would
have been aware of who he was and not necessarily
have met him. But I guess my first, I suppose
full time introduction was we were I was nineteen years
(06:18):
old and first made the senior team in two thousand
and six and was in a boat where Eric the
men's four, and that was the first time that I
came across him, And to be honest, we didn't. Well,
it's not that I probably didn't get the opportunity. He
probably I was sort of insignificant. I suppose we were
in the same boat, but I was the newbe nineteen
year olds, so it was easy to blame everything going
(06:38):
wrong on me. So I know Eric and I probably
didn't get off on the on the best foot. But
you know, I certainly over those years in the four,
I guess crow to appreciate his training ability, and maybe
I would say he mellowed out a little bit. And then, yeah,
we obviously teamed up after three years in the four.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And how did that come about? Had he had he
started to tolerate you pie there, actually realized you were
a pretty good roller. They added the move to the
pair come about.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think I took much tolerating.
I think it was much more the other way around.
But as a nineteen year old versus one hundred and
five kilo twenty two twenty three year old, you know
I wasn't I was a fly. You know, he could
have just swadded me away. So I think over those
three years in the four A obviously and Derek's respect,
and you know, if you beat him a few times,
(07:31):
you can't help but take notice, either on the water
or on the rhyme machine. That's where a lot of
direct comparisons get made. And you know, you take him
down a couple of times on the row machine, you
can't help but take notice. In terms of how we
joined up as a combination, we were world champions in
the four and two thousand and seven and then went
into the Olympic Games with high hopes of the medal
(07:53):
but didn't pan out. And I suppose one of those
things you look back on, although very disappointing at the time,
perhaps that was, you know, integral to our success in
the subsequent years was having I guess that failure and
been able to rise from the ashes ashes as it
were so out of before. You know, everyone sort of
(08:15):
had a bit of a break, and I think two
of the guys had decided on sort of twelve month
long breaks. But Eric and I had trained together in
the Pier Wilson before and had always gone well, and
more or less I looked around the squad and made
an assessment, you know what boat class should I target?
What's my best chance of success? And decided that, you know,
(08:37):
Eric and I were somewhat of a proven quantity, and yeah,
I pretty much wrote him an email or wrote his
wife and at the time an email and said, you know,
can let's have a shot at this, And yeah, she
gave us a two year pass at that point.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
With a few a few years to reflect. What were
the key ingredients for that incredible consistency that sustained success
over so many years, so many regattas.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, there's lots of things that have that made up
I guess the unbeaten streak. There's certainly an element of luck,
you know, those we sort of had. I certainly had
my fair share of injuries over that period, but nothing
that sort of struck at a really detrimental time. I think,
first and foremost, the biggest key to our success was
(09:25):
that I would in my opinion, Eric and I were
probably two of the top five physical just physical specimens
or attributes capabilities in world rowing. So obviously you have
a number of boat classes, but of all the rowers internationally,
I would say Eric and I weld two have probably
the top five. And when you take that talent and
(09:49):
you've just happened to be in the same country at
the same time, it's I felt as that we wrote
technically relatively well, but I think at a large part
of it that we were physically superior to any of
our opposition that we ever came up against. They don't
if you look at two kilometer rowing schools, I'm not
(10:09):
aware of any of our competitors ever going faster than
one of us were to learn both of us. So
you know, when you had that together, we just had
to sort of row half well. And I suppose you
tending that up. We weren't that physical. You know, we
didn't have those capabilities aren't God given, you know, that's
(10:29):
the nature of rowing. You have to earn those stripes
through sheer, hard training. The talent has just been able
to turn up day after day, and yeah, we got
to a point I suppose. Yeah, we were very mentally strong.
We had strong belief in our abilities. We've proven it
to ourselves. We had two different coaches over that period
(10:51):
and both of those students were probably you know, the
right people at the right time. Dick Tonks for the
first four years was a very hard taskmaster and I
wouldn't say I enjoyed a lot of it, but it
was the foundation of us as athletes. And then the
subsequent four years with Noel Donaldson who came over from
Australia to coach us. You know, he was more of
(11:12):
a He coached us, but it was also sort of
man management as well, making sure we didn't get too
full of our boots and you know, he kept us,
I guess grounded and kept moving forward and ultimately just
our own personal drive to be the best in the
world and not be complacent. I think that was We're
hugely competitive as much against each other, know, we were
(11:36):
competitive against each other and against all the other members
in the New Zealand squad, and then that manifested itself internationally.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Did the two of you ever disagree on things?
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Certainly, Yeah, no we did, but know you often asked
us to speak at I guess business or talk to
business people and that sort of thing. And I often
suggest that the best conflict resolution scheme is to never lose.
So that's certainly my takeaway is that perhaps we didn't
(12:06):
have to ask ourselves really hard questions because we never
did lose. But we definitely had disagreements. But I suppose
you always understood that usually whatever either of us was
putting forward was just what we believed would make the
boat go fastest. And you know, when it's coming from
the right place, you know there's you know, you can
(12:28):
sort of move forward or off that. And we did
entertain each other's suggestions, and I think we were sort
of quite young and yang and to be honest, Eric
is very I don't know what the word is forgiving.
You know, nothing really phases us in too much. I
could have clipped them around the air or not what
ever would But and we always left it on the water,
(12:49):
you know, like we didn't really we never really dwelled
on things too long, I suppose, and just moved on.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Was twenty sixteen always going to be it for the
two of you as a combo? Was that the natural
finishing point for the two of you and the pair.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
I think it was a natural finishing point. I don't
think we spoke about it in the lead up that
you know this is going to be it. We sort
of left that open. You didn't want to add that
extra pressure to it, I suppose, but I think I
don't know if the writing was on the wall. But
mentally I was with my move to cycling, you know,
mentally I was ready for a break. I suppose we
(13:26):
had that build up to the London getting the first
gold and then Rio sort of felt like, you know,
proving it wasn't a fluke, and we still had enough
juice to tackle that four years. But I think it
would have been a tall ask to go another four
years in the same combination. And it's not that we
weren't getting on, but I think the word compromises starting
(13:47):
to creep into training, and to me, don't I don't
like to be there if I'm not at my best
or we're not at our best as a combination, and
it was sort of felt like we were adding straws
to a camel's back, and you know, we weren't quite
sure which compromise it was going to be there. The
one that was too much, and then we were into
our best and we did get tipped over. So I
(14:09):
suddenly felt the pressure of you know, eight years, I guess,
and that was in the lead up to where other
competitors it was just another race for them, But for me,
I was certainly aware that we sort of had eight
years riding on every single race. You know, it could
be relatively insignificant race in the back blocks of Poland
(14:29):
or something, but we had eight years riding on there,
and it wouldn't have necessarily well it would have, it
wouldn't have been the same if we had lost ultimately,
So you know, I was aware of that, and yeah,
mentally probably ready for a break. And Eric, I think,
with his family and everything, he was making quite a
few sacrifices. You know, his son has autism, and he
(14:51):
wanted to be more offer, be more available I suppose
to support him through that. So yeah, I think it
was in some ways a natural finishing point.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Eric Murray once said to me that he'd never met
anybody who was able to endure as much severe discomfort
all the way up to excruciating pain as you could.
What was it the heart of that?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, I mean I think, to be honest, Eric can
do that fairly well himself, and I guess that was
part of the key. But yeah, I think it's practice.
You know, you go, you go to those tough places
often enough in training and it becomes slightly less daunting,
and you know you're suffering, you're you're on another person's ten,
(15:37):
but for you it's only in a seven, you know,
and you realize that you can live there. For ye know,
I can say I'm struggling, but I know, like I
can handle this another five minutes, or I can handle
another two minutes, and you just and more often you
go to the I guess the dark places. You become
more comfortable being uncomfortable. But yeah, it's never easy, and
(15:58):
you know, you come up with different strategies around. No,
I can't think I'm pretty hard on myself, to be honest,
when you reflect back lot of I've given myself a
few mental telling offs, and I call myself various names
in my head when I think about not necessarily giving up.
But yeah, like I did. I used to thrive off
(16:21):
knowing that I could and did do things that other
people wouldn't, and training in particularly the that I would
go Yeah, I did thrive off that. Yeah, I would
tell myself, you know that no one else is doing this,
you know, I things like that, and yeah, I think
it just accumulated over time, pretty stubborn. And yeah, I
(16:46):
think ultimately it started. I got allowed of self worth
out of being good at rowing, and you know that's
a fairly big motivator, Haim.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
It's just been such a pleasure catching up with you
and wandering about memory laying, getting an insight into the
reasons behind your incredible success both in the pair and
in the eight as well. And now you've got the
America's cap to look for two now as a cyclaw
for Team New Zealand, so that'll get the competitive juices
flying once again, I'm sure. But thank you for joining
us this afternoon to be part of our Road to
(17:16):
Paris feature. That is Hamish Bond, one of just two
New Zealanders, along with Dame Lisa Carrington, two have won
gold medals at three separate Olympic game.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to News Talk zed B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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