Olympics 2024: New single scull hopeful Tom Mackintosh's 'leap of faith moment'

Clambering back into his skiff after being pitched overboard into the chilly mid-winter waters of Lake Karapiro, Tom Mackintosh was beginning to wonder whether he had made the right call.

Fourteen months ago, the New Zealand rower, who was the youngest member of the men's eight crew that claimed gold in Tokyo, made the switch from sweep boats to the single sculls event.

The move came after the 27-year-old took a break from the sport at the end of the 2022 season to focus on his career.

But as he sat at his desk in his corporate job as a financial analyst, the Hawke's Bay rower found his thoughts wandering to the Paris Olympics. He began crunching a different kind of number: could he revive his international career, in an entirely new boat class, in time to be a force at the Games?

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It was, as Mackintosh describes, a "leap of faith moment".

It didn't take long before he plunged into reality.

"When I first got into the single, I approached it like I would row the eight and to be honest, I flipped the scull a few times and ended up in the water and things weren't really going to plan," says Mackintosh.

"The training is physiologically a lot different, and the application of power is quite nuanced, so it has been a pretty steep learning curve."

Mackintosh rode the learning curve all the way to a bronze medal at the 2023 world championships - his first major international regatta in the boat class.

This week, he will follow in the footsteps of some of the legends of New Zealand rowing in Olympic champions Mahé Drysdale (2016, 2012) and Rob Waddell (2000), when he lines up in the men's single sculls event at the Paris Olympics.

Mackintosh got the numbers right.

While Paris will be Mackintosh's second Olympics, he says the build-up to these Games has had a very different feel about them to that three years ago, when he was preparing with a crew of eight.

"It's definitely a different feel being more of a lone wolf. I'm operating on my own or with my close team, my coach Gary [Roberts]. There's not eight other guys to leverage off and work with them and work together. So it's just me and I just knuckle down on that and I am enjoying the experience."

Mackintosh is among five members of the big boat crew from Tokyo that will be competing in different classes at these Games - the others being Matt MacDonald, Tom Murray (men's four alongside Logan Ullrich and Oliver Maclean), Daniel Williamson and Phillip Wilson (men's pair).

He says a little part of his heart hurts that New Zealand won't be defending their Olympic crown in the blue riband event.

The New Zealand men's eight qualified for Tokyo via the last chance regatta only months before the Games and went on to become Olympic champions after torching the field in a brutal display of power.

"I'm a bit sad about it. I think it's quite nice to sort of claim a title and then have the opportunity to defend it, which I really admire Emma [Twigg] for doing, defending her title in the single scull," he says.

"But logistically and pragmatically, it's quite difficult for a country of our size to fund an eight and to get eight good athletes lined up for it.

"The reality of our international programme is to be competitive, that means that you need to have the top eight athletes in the building team up, and often New Zealand has a priority on small boat classes. So I find myself very privileged to come up in an era where we did have an eight programme."

Mackintosh will be the first of the New Zealand rowing team in action at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in Paris on Saturday night (NZT).