Catching up with Hamish Bond

WORDS BENEDICT TUFNELL

PROFILE

PHOTOGRAPHY STEVE McARTHUR

“As an elite athlete I love nothing more than somebody telling me I can’t do something.”

Only 12 months after winning gold in the men’s pair in Rio with partner Eric Murray, Hamish Bond is preparing for the upcoming world championships. Only this time he will be racing in Norway – on a bicycle.

Row360 catches up with Bond to hear more about his remarkable transformation from elite rower to elite cyclist in the space of just one year.

When did you know that you were going to switch sports?

I had it in my mind before Rio that I was keen to give it a shot. I had cycled a bit for training in rowing and I was intrigued to see where I could get if I gave it my full attention. The plan was to give it four or five months and perhaps get to the New Zealand national championships. I figured at that stage I would probably then go back to rowing. Then one thing led to another and I dived down the rabbit hole and I still haven’t found the bottom. I had enough success to keep me hungry and interested and looking for more. I think my trainer, Dan Plews, was probably the first person to put the idea of Tokyo 2020 in front of me and since then it has been about finding out firstly, if I’m good enough and secondly, how to get there.

Can you say which is harder, rowing or cycling?

I think anything is as hard as you want to make it. I guess rowing is physically harder on the body - you can’t row at a hard level for five hours, but you can bike for five hours. The fact that rowing is a whole-body workout makes the physical sensation of rowing yourself to exhaustion more painful, or at least a slightly different feeling to what you can reach cycling.