Top university sports award to Bond

New Zealand’s Hamish Bond has been named the 2009 New Zealand University Sportsperson of the Year.

Bond won the award over five other finalists on the back of his World Champion title at the 2009 World Rowing Championships in Poznan, Poland. Bond is also a World Champion from 2007 when his crew won the men’s four.
Currently studying for a Bachelor of Business Studies (finance major) and a Diploma in Personal Financial Planning, Bond says they should take about four years to complete. “I have been studying part time since 2004 and I have approximately one more year of part-time study until I complete both qualifications. So I’m about 80 percent done.” Bond is studying at New Zealand’s Massey University.

Bond had to accept the award from the other side of the world as he is in the middle of a European rowing tour. Bond arrived in Europe in time for the first stage of the Rowing World Cup at the end of May in Bled, Slovenia. Before this first race of the season there was a cloud of doubt over how Bond would fair. Bond, who races in the men’s pair with his partner Eric Murray, was recovering from a shoulder injury that had caused stress on his ribs.
The duo finished first ahead of the very strong British pair of Peter Reed and Andrew Triggs Hodge. Bond and Murray then went on to take gold again at Rowing World Cup II in Munich, Germany last month. Bond has been training at Dorney Lake in London, venue for the 2012 Olympic Games rowing regatta, in preparation for the Henley Royal Regatta in which he competed last weekend in the pair with Eric Murray.

Executive Director of University Sport New Zealand Louise Burns mentioned in the New Zealand newspaper, the Otago Daily Times, that the most awards of any sporting code this year went to rowers.

"You only have to look at the array of codes represented to see sport is in great heart with university students who continue to succeed on the national and international stage," Burns told the daily.

The accolades have been flowing for Bond this year. Earlier in the year Bond, along with Murray, was named New Zealand’s top sports team for 2009 at the Halberg Awards.

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