Tauranga election: Olympian rower Mahé Drysdale considers running for council

Two-time Olympic gold medallist and five-time world rowing champion Mahé Drysdale is considering joining the race for Tauranga City Council.

The legendary sportsman told the Bay of Plenty Times he was weighing up standing in Tauranga’s council election in July, as the term of Government-installed commissioners ends.

Yesterday he attended an event celebrating the 10th birthday of the Sir Bob Owens Retirement Village in Bethlehem.

The village is named after Drysdale’s grandfather, a former city mayor and business magnate credited with helping develop the Port of Tauranga.

Drysdale, 45, said he expected to firm up his decision within the “next few days” and could provide more details then.

Nominations for the election open on April 26.

The Cambridge-based former Tauranga Boys’ College student, who was joined at the event by wife Juliette and their three young children, is a two-time Olympian champion and five-time world champion in the single sculls.

Drysdale has also been the New Zealand national champion seven times and has been awarded New Zealand Sportsman of the Year five times.

Among his sporting accolades, Drysdale also won an Olympic bronze, three world silvers and was crowned New Zealand’s favourite athlete following the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

He retired from competitive rowing in 2021 the following year was awarded the Thomas Keller Medal, considered the highest honour in rowing.

After retiring, he became a financial advisor and has recently chaired a union of elite athletes involved in a landmark Employment Relations Authority case with government agency High Performance Sport NZ.

He told the Bay of Plenty Times that running for council was something he was passionate about, particularly regarding the potential for “what Tauranga can be”.

“When you grow up in a family like I have, there’s a lot of giving back from both my grandfather and my grandma. The Bob and Joy [Owens] Scholarship that goes to nine schools around the Bay is a great initiative and [example] of that. That’s why I would consider running,” Drysdale said.

“There’s opportunity there.”

Drysdale’s uncle and Sir Bob’s son, Doug Owens, has already announced his intention to stand for the Tauranga mayoralty.

Drysdale said he had spoken with his uncle, a former regional councillor who has previously stood for the Tauranga mayoralty, about his potentially joining the race.

“It’s obviously hard if you are going to run against your family member but you have to say if you can offer a different perspective. If I were to run, it would be [with a] a completely different sort of perspective,” Drysdale said.

Asked about potentially running against his nephew, Doug Owens told the Bay of Plenty Times it did not bother him.

”It is a democracy and people make their choices … we’re all coming from different perspectives.

”It’s all democracy at work here and we’ve got to get it back into place in this city.”

Lessons from his youth

In a speech to village residents gathered for the birthday celebrations, Drysdale spoke about the values his grandfather instilled in him from a young age.

Drysdale, who lived with Sir Bob and Joy in Auckland when he was 16, said he remembered how hard-working his grandfather was, particularly reading through board papers.

“What I got out of that was the determination he had to succeed, no matter what,” Drysdale said.

“That’s certainly been a great lesson to me and my career and what I’ve done.”

Drysdale became emotional during his speech, referring to when he first started rowing when “there was no money” and his grandmother giving him $200 a week to live on.

“Without Joy, I wouldn’t have been as successful as I was.”

When Drysdale won his first Olympic gold for single sculls in 2012, he dedicated the medal to her.

Drysdale was acutely aware of his grandparents’ efforts to succeed in life and what they had achieved.

“Granddad didn’t come from money and was living in a state house in Merivale, struggling to pay the bills every week for his growing family.”

Drysdale talked about Sir Bob’s career starting with working at mills on Matakana Island before venturing into an “empire” of businesses, many of which serviced the Port of Tauranga, which he is credited with helping to become New Zealand’s largest port.

Sir Bob was also a councillor and mayor of Mount Maunganui when it had its own borough council then later Tauranga city.

“In Granddad’s last speech, he mentioned what New Zealand was and I’m sure most of you will remember; if the community and school need a pool, the dads of all the kids would get out their spades and start digging a hole,” Drysdale said.

“We tended to make things happen, contributing time without cost, the pooling together as a community was the foundation blocks of our country … it was what he believed in. I’m not sure what he would think of today with all the red tape and road cones.

“We need to do what we can for each other … anything is achievable.”

Kiri Gillespie is an assistant news director and a senior journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, specialising in local politics and city issues. She was a finalist for the Voyager Media Awards Regional Journalist of the Year in 2021.