Two weeks. That’s all Jacob Haley and Millie Brooks needed to master a sport entirely new to them before winning gold at the national championships.
The Cashmere High School pair attended their first beach sprints training camp at Orewa Beach in April, learned to run into a boat, navigate a slalom course, and race in surf conditions. Fourteen days later, they stood atop the podium in the U18 mixed double at the 2026 NZ Beach Sprint Championships. Neither expected it. Both wanted just to make the semi-finals.
For Millie, beach sprints arrived at the right moment. After missing selection for the Under-19 flatwater squad, the 18-year-old felt the sting of rejection. A conversation between parents led her north to try something different. She’d already tasted success on flatwater, winning gold in the Women’s U18 quad at the Maadi Regatta, but flatwater rowing carried pressure she didn’t always enjoy.
“It was amazing, I had so much fun and it was much less stressful than normal flatwater rowing,” she says. “I personally love hanging out at the beach and this made it for such a cool experience.”
Jacob, 16, came to the sport by accident. He saw a flyer, thought it sounded fun, and noticed nationals would be held just two weeks after the camp finished. Worth a shot. At Maadi, he’d made B finals in both the single and pairs. Beach sprints offered a new challenge entirely.
The two-day camp didn’t hold back. Participants learned beach starts and finishes, slalom skills, tactics in surf, boat transitions, race strategy, equipment handling and safety. David Vallance, director of Beach Sprints New Zealand, brought in mentors who knew what they were doing: Emma Twigg and Matt Dunham, both world champions in the discipline. When you’re being taught by people who’ve competed at the highest level, it sticks.
“It was extremely motivating to be taught by the best of the best,” Jacob says. “They explained everything clearly and supported us the whole way.”
The sport itself bears little resemblance to flatwater rowing. Athletes sprint down the beach, dive into a boat, weave through a slalom course and race back to shore. The whole thing lasts two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half minutes. Vallance compares it to T20 cricket or rugby sevens—compressed, faster, designed for spectators. Add music and a beachside vibe, and you’ve got something that feels less like work and more like an event.
What surprised Vallance most wasn’t Jacob and Millie’s success. It was the uptake overall. More than 30 young rowers travelled to the camp from across the country. About 80 percent of them entered nationals. That’s genuine engagement, not polite interest.
“Because of the variables such as surf conditions where a wave can change the outcome of a race, it removes some of the pressure to execute every stroke perfectly,” Vallance explains. “There’s the same atmosphere whether it’s at a World Championships or a club regatta, and because rowers are all in one area of the beach there’s a lot more engagement between participants than at a traditional rowing regatta.”
With beach sprints making its Olympic debut at Los Angeles 2028, timing matters. Jacob and Millie are already ambassadors. Millie wants her rowing friends to see what she’s discovered. Jacob simply says it’s given him new skills in a fun environment while meeting rowers from schools across the country.
That’s the real win.
