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Kiwi coach considers China offer
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ONE of New Zealand’s most successful Olympic sports, rowing, was in turmoil yesterday with celebrated coach Dick Tonks threatening to defect to China eight months out from the Rio Games.
A feud between Tonks, who has coached multiple world and Olympic champions, and rowing bosses erupted after he refused demands to stop assisting a Chinese crew based in New Zealand.
Rowing New Zealand (RNZ) chief Simon Peterson said Tonks had to choose between New Zealand and China.
“He decided to go with the Chinese. He has walked... and wants nothing to do with us at RNZ,” Peterson claimed on Radio Sport.
Tonks, 64, maintained that assisting overseas crews was not new and he was angry his dispute was being played out in the media. “I’ve been undermined at different times with no consultation at all,” he told TV3. “You don’t normally conduct these things in the press and that’s very annoying. And the statement that they are in consultation with me when they are not, is also highly annoying.”
Tonks said he was weighing up an offer to coach in China. “Now I have another option on the table in front of me that secures my future,” he said.
Tonks has coached 13 world champions and six Olympic gold medalists. He has taken the New Zealand team to five Olympics including London in 2012 where it picked up three gold and two bronze medals.
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