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Born | Te Kūiti, New Zealand | 7 January 1975|||||||||||||||||||||||
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Relative | Alistair Scown (father-in-law) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Robert Norman Waddell ONZM (born 7 January 1975) is a New Zealand Olympic Gold Medalist and double World Champion Single sculler rower, and America's Cup yachtsman. He is a triple New Zealand Supreme 'Halberg Awards' Sportsperson of the year winner, 1998 to 2000. He holds the third fastest 2000 metre indoor rowing machine time in the world, clocking a time of 5 mins 36.6 secs (5:36.6), which was the previous world record for 19 years before the time was improved by Joshua Dunkley-Smith. He also held the record for 5000m on the rowing machine with a time of 14min 58sec. This made him the first person to go below 15 min for this distance.[1] He holds a black belt in judo.[2] He played rugby union for Waikato.[3] Waddell was Chef de Mission of the 2014 and 2018 New Zealand Commonwealth Games teams, and the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics.