Scrambling for second in the men’s pair

At the London 2012 Olympic Games they smashed the long standing World Best Time held by James Cracknell and Matthew Pinsent (GBR) in a fabulous showing of speed during the heats. Winning gold at the end of the regatta meant that the duo had gone through the entire Olympiad without knowing defeat.

By the end of the 2013 season Murray and Bond, the rare Kiwi pair, had all but run out of records to break.

The 2013 Samsung World Rowing Cup series opened in Sydney and the release of the entries showed that a nation other than New Zealand would have a taste of success. Having taken an extended post-Olympic Games break, the Kiwi pair decided not to travel to Sydney and instead used a domestic regatta to  familiarise themselves once more to 2,000m racing. London’s silver medallists Germain Chardin and Dorian Mortelette of France were tipped to be the crew to beat. Their route to success in Sydney was not, however, as many would have expected. Their teammates Benjamin Lang and Julien Despres finished ahead of Chardin and Mortelette in the heats. But they did what they needed to do when it mattered most and took the first win of the season. The second French crew finished with bronze with Australia earning silver.

By the time the second World Rowing Cup came around it was business as usual when it came to the men’s pair rankings. The Kiwis had arrived to the course where they had been crowned Olympic Champions, Eton Dorney. Murray and Bond made sure to show their competitors, and the roaring crowd, that they were still number one and that it would take something very special to beat them. With Chardin and Mortelette deciding to focus on their nation’s eight, Poland and Romania joined Murray and Bond on the podium.

After stopping off at the Henley Royal Regatta where they equalled the the time of the course record, the third World Rowing Cup was upon the Kiwi pair. Who would join the untouchable duo on the Lucerne podium? Italy donned the silver medals with an impressive bronze medal finish by the Spanish.

A few weeks later the season finale was upon the world’s top crews at the 2013 World Rowing Championships in Chungju, Korea where the results would mean the most. For New Zealand’s unbeaten Murray and Bond victory in Chungju would not only mean the completion of a four-year winning streak but it would make them the crew with the most consecutive World Rowing regatta wins in the history of rowing: 16. Including every round of racing at other regattas such as Holland Beker and Henley, the duo had raced over 50 times without being beaten. That’s over 100,000m raced without being caught. But setting records isn’t something the pair dwells on. “It’s what other people tell you,” Murray says. “We don’t sit around thinking ‘we need to win to become the crew with the most consecutive wins,’ it just comes, it creeps up on you.”

Conditions for the men’s pair final were just what Bond had hoped for: a head wind. In their traditional style, the Kiwis executed their race as if there was nobody else on the water and 2,000m later they collected their fourth World Championship title as a pair and sixteenth consecutive win in the pair.

Although they may make winning look easy Bond says it never is. “You win the championship in the 11 months building up to it, not at the championship itself. You have to go out and race but your result is almost predetermined by the time you get there,” he says.

In the men’s pair final every crew racing had already stood on the podium during the World Cup series – except the Dutch. Rogier Blink and Mitchel Steenman rowed to bronze at the 2013 European Championships, but had not raced together since. By the 1,000m mark on Tangum Lake, Blink and Steenman had slotted into the bronze medal position behind Chandin and Mortelette and this remained the order to the line.

Murray and Bond’s achievements at the end of 2013 are notable not just in rowing but across all sports. It is rare in any sport to find a combination of athletes who are capable of such feats of excellence and continuous success. “We just try our best every day,” Murray explains, “to go as fast as possible and see where it takes us.”

They are untouchable but Murray and Bond have a deeper respect for this title they have assumed. “When we were first on the team (in the men’s four) in ’05, ’06 and even ’07 everyone was saying the British were unbeatable and asked what we were doing trying to beat them,” Murray says. “I would be the same if I was in their (other crews) position, wanting to beat the best crews that are out there.”

Winning certainly does not get boring for the duo and 2014 is set to be a season where Eric Murray and Hamish Bond will set the bar of sporting accomplishment even higher.

Watch the semifinal and final of the men’s pair again here.