Eric Murray

EVENT: Rowing - Coxless Pair, Coxless Four

Eric Murray is a two-time Olympic champion, having won gold in the coxless pair with Hamish Bond at London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

The pair teamed up in 2009 and became one of the most successful combinations in rowing history. Murray and Bond were unbeaten internationally from 2009 until they parted ways in 2016, winning 69 consecutive races. They also set the world record time in the event (6min 08.50s) at the 2012 Olympics.

Murray, the older and bigger (1.96m or 6ft 5in) of the pair, was born in Hastings in 1982, but grew up in the Bombay Hills, south of Auckland, attending Pukekohe High School. He initially favoured rugby and only took up rowing as part of his rugby training.

By 2003 his rowing talent was undeniable and he made the national squad. The following year he was in the New Zealand coxless four for the Athens Olympic Games, alongside Carl Meyer, Donald Leach and Mahé Drysdale. The New Zealanders finished fifth in the final.

Murray competed in the coxless four in Beijing in 2008 along with Carl Meyer, James Dallinger and Bond. Having won the 2007 world title, they were favoured for Olympic gold, but had a disappointing Games. They missed out on a place in the final by half a second, and then won the B final, for an overall placing of seventh.

Few would have dreamed at that point that Murray, with two Olympics behind him, would find in Bond the perfect partner in the pair event and that they would go on to enjoy a sensational eight-year spell of domination. Besides their size disparity, they were different personalities, with Murray by far the more ebullient.

They peeled off six successive coxless pairs world titles between 2009 and 2015. They weren’t close races either. Murray and Bond balanced each other perfectly in a boat and their strengths gelled. They generally won their races by several boat lengths. No frantic stroke-for-stroke sprints to the line for them.

They were so dominant that there was heightened interest at the world champs in Amsterdam in 2014 when they also entered the coxed pair event, with Caleb Shepherd as the cox. The result was the same, another comprehensive victory, by more than 10 seconds, another world title.

By the end of their time together, Murray and Bond were prohibitive favourites before any race. At the 2012 London Olympics they won by 5½ seconds in an event that is often decided by mere tenths of a second. At Rio four years later, they had three seconds to spare.

After the 2016 Olympics, Murray had knee surgery and Bond took a break from rowing to pursue competitive cycling. The team broke up, unbeaten.

Murray had shone in other areas of rowing, too. In December 2011 he set a world record on an indoor rowing machine, covering 18,728m in one hour. A month later he faced men's single sculls world champion Mahé Drysdale in the single sculls event at the North Island championships and won a close race.

Murray remained a prominent public figure after his retirement from rowing, featuring on a variety of television shows, most notably Dancing with the Stars in 2022, when he was forced to quit midway through the event because he’d contracted Covid. Murray is also a registered marriage celebrant.

In 2013 Murray was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. In 2023 he was promoted to Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

In 2018 the International Rowing Federation awarded Murray and Bond the Thomas Keller Medal for their outstanding international rowing careers, the sport's highest honour. It is awarded within five years of an athlete's retirement, and acknowledges an exceptional rowing career and exemplary sportsmanship. 

Murray and Bond won the Halberg Supreme Award in 2012 and 2014 and three times won the Team of the Year section at the awards. They were also voted Halberg Champion of the Decade and, not surprisingly, Team of the Decade. They won the NZOC’s Lonsdale Cup in 2014.