Darcy Hadfield was a member of the first solely New Zealand team to go to an Olympics, in Antwerp in 1920, finishing third in the single sculls. Two years later he challenged and beat Dick Arnst on the Whanganui River in New Zealand for the world professional title and lost it three months later to Australian Jim Paddon. Hadfield’s career, which began with national rowing titles in 1911, had been interrupted by World War I, during which he was wounded at Passchendaele. He had also been invalided out of the trenches because of bronchitis. Hadfield won the singles at the Henley Peace Regatta in 1919 and also won the single sculls at the Inter-Allied Games in Paris the same year and was awarded a gold watch as one of the two outstanding competitors at the Games.
New Zealand