FEATURE-Olympics-History looks down on New Zealand rowers

(The following is an updated version of a feature first issued on May 7)

By Greg Stutchbury

MELBOURNE, July 30 (Reuters) - History casts an imposing backdrop over Hamish Bond's disfigured right shoulder as he sits and chats at Rowing New Zealand's Lake Karapiro headquarters.

A large framed photograph of New Zealand's Olympic silver medal-winning coxless four from the 1972 Munich Games hangs behind him.

Bond, who sits in the stern of the boat in the current line-up, is prompted by fellow crew members Carl Meyer and James Dallinger to demonstrate the damage caused by a collision with a truck late last year.

Eagerly, the university student asks: "Want to see it?"

Without waiting for an answer, Bond rotates his shoulder forward to reveal the collarbone protruding well away from his shoulder.

"I separated my shoulder (when he was hit while out cycling). Basically my collarbone isn't attached to the shoulder blade but it doesn't really bother me."

The collision cost the three men and team mate Eric Murray valuable training time on the water towards the end of last year after they had won the world title in Munich.

"Yeah, we had a bit of time out from training together while he recovered," interjects Meyer, who sits in the bow and paces the boat.

"Then Dally (Dallinger) had an operation and we had little pieces of this and that but we got back into the boat and had a pretty good summer considering."

A "pretty good" summer, ended with the four being confirmed as New Zealand's entrants in the coxless four for the Beijing Olympics after a succession of national trials in March.

TEAM WORK

The selection capped a remarkable 12 months.

Assembled less than six months before last September's world championships when Dallinger was brought into the boat after trials in March, they spent the first month getting to know each other and adopting a unified style.