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It's been a HUGE few weeks!!

• WA Wrap Up

  • Club & School Events

  • State Team

• PSA Head of the River Recap

• Pathway Announcement

• World Cup 1

• Perfect Balance Rowing

• Club Corner
  • FRC Scholarships
  • WARC Open Session
• WinTech

Cover photo: WARC Composite Open Men's Quad at Nationals. Credit: Pat Boere Photography

Wow wow wow!!!

The 2024 Australian Rowing Championships has come and gone, with a huge contingent of 101 WA athletes racing over there.

And what a massive Nationals it was. Pretty much perfect conditions meant fair and even racing, although the humidity was a challenge for many athletes. WA athletes came home with 17 National Championship titles - an exceptional result which underscores the strength of our Club and Institute HP and Pathway programs. 

PLC was the sole WA school who made an appearance - and all worth it with a fantastic Bronze medal in the Under 17 Schoolgirl Eight!! They were well-known on site for their oustanding cheersquad efforts - I think everyone, WA or not, was pleased to see them make a podium appearance! Congratulations to PLC for their achievements across the week - look forward to seeing them in action locally when the IGSSA season kicks off.

Photo: PLC's Under 17 Schoolgirl Eight - Bronze! Credit: Sadie Purser.

Gen Hart (FRC-WAIS) was the second most successful athlete of the entire regatta with a massive four Gold and one Bronze medal across the week - pair partner Becky Pretorius (SRRC-WAIS) was not far behind, coming in equal third (with Olympic Gold Medalist Jess Morrison!) on the individual medal tally! With Greta Spencer (SRRC) and Bronwyn Cox (UWABC-HPNTC) also featuring in the Top 10, the strength of WA athletes - especially our women - is indisputable.  In the Club medal tally, Fremantle ranked 7th in the country, with Swans not far behind in 13th.

Charlotte, Gen and Becky - powerhouse of the Gold-medal winning U23W8+. Photo: Pat Boere Photography.

Fremantle's Remy Payne won the Schoolboy 1x, following in the footsteps of WA legend David Watts who won it for Trinity in 2009. Clubmates Juliet Kelly and Sina Metzger won the U19W2x, a stunning victory in a very competitive field. Swan River's Lyla Fievez and Greta Spencer had a full plate of racing across the week and in the space of 90 spectacular minutes on Friday morning, won both the U19W4- AND the U21W4+. I could literally go on and on about all the amazing results across the week - how about the brilliant U23M4x of Sangster/Whyatt/Oliver/Davis which earned Liam Davis his first ever National Championship and made his mum cry in the grandstand? - but I'd go over my word count!! 

Lyla & Greta in the final strokes of their victorious row in the U19W4-. Photo: Pat Boere Photography.

Remy Payne (FRC - racing in a Churchlands zootie) winning the SB1x. Photo: Pat Boere Photgraphy. 

And of course our NTC athletes finished the week with a swag of silverware - Bronnie, Jacqui, Giorgia, Josh, Alex and Jack all winning at least one Championship. Jack and Alex (both WARC-NTC) in the OM2x produced one of the fiercest races of the regatta, finishing just 1.3 seconds off the Australian Men's Double - showing how tight it is at the top end and just how close the athletes are! Sadly, Annabelle was not in racing form after sustaining a small injury in the leadup - taking all precautions against making it worse during the all-important Olympic year.

Awwwwww. Photo: Brad Redfern Photography.

It was lovely to see family & friends who had flown over to support their rowers - Donna Whyatt, Blake's mum, said she "almost blacked out" when Blake placed 2nd in the U23M1x - a wonderful demonstration of the strength of the support ecosystem that the luckiest athletes have behind them.

WA BROs Grant Ford, John Murdoch and Luke Forsyth were all on deck for Rowing Australia - Grant as the Head Honcho (President of the Jury), John as a BRO and Luke as a State Technical Official. 

You can read the full WA results wrap up here, or keep scrolling for the National Champions & State Team wrap up!

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

 Full WA Podium & A Final Results here. Please let me know ASAP if you spot any errors in my result-compiling!!

The State Team made us proud as they do every year. Each athlete did their best to represent you with distinction and bring the WA spirit to their lane!

On the Friday night of Nationals we celebrated with a dinner & zootie presentation. This was very well attended this year with over 100 people joining us - athletes, coaches, clubmates, family & friends. Alex Hagan was our guest speaker who brought her famously dry sense of humour and gave us three minutes of what must be the season's best rev up speech. IYKYK, I'd have to add a few bleeps in if it were to go up on our socials. Josh Hicks brought the evening to a close - as a 12-time WA representative he shared what brought him back to the team year after year, ignoring encouragement from his Sydney Rowing Club teammates to change his state of origin to NSW as he would be within his rights to do. Josh said - "it shows that they don't understand much about West Australians and our state pride - they don't get what a big deal it is for us to shift over East... it's been a real honour to represent the state and I look forward to the day where WA can represent WA not at Nationals but at Worlds". 

The Men's Youth 8+ at the State Team Dinner. Photo: Pat Boere. 

Then race day - Day 7 of Nationals - came around & the grandstand filled up with club and school athletes ready to cheer on their State crews. Over the course of 2 and a half hours, across 10 events, crews in bright coloured state zooties put whatever they had left on the line for one last push at victory! The highlight was our Penrith Cup crew - Jake Sangster, Ollie Cliff, Ethan Bromley & Connor Brace, coached by Kevin Neville - pushing into a Bronze medal in a very fierce race. Those four were the only ones to nominate for the PC & worked incredibly hard across the season to become a tight knit crew. A special theme connects the four of them - all Shenton boys! What a thrill for the Shenton community to have their success highlight what is achievable if you follow the sport through after school. 

Check out the full results: 

The 2024 PSA Head of the River was held on 23 March and delivered all the fun we have come to expect from this regatta! A kaleidoscope of PSA colours swirled at the finish line barricade, as teammates, family, friends, alumni & coaches readied themselves to encourage, deafeningly, their respective schools' crews home to the line. The BBQ was ripping hot, the Umpires were in position, the Heads had been briefed - nothing left to do but race...

Photo: Kelvin Ha

The two major Championships on offer - the Challenge and Hamer Cups - are historic & prestigious. The Challenge Cup is presented to the winning First VIII on the day as it has been at every Head of the River since 1899. The Hamer Cup is presented to the Champion School - the program that performs the best across the whole Head of the River regatta. This trophy rewards the program who has strength across their whole team, and means that the school's performance is judged on the sum of it's parts.

Read the history of the PSA trophies here

Trinity College came into the regatta favourites for the Hamer Cup - off the back of a strong Regatta 5, and as returning Champions from the 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2019 Seasons! They returned the trophy at the start of the regatta... and 90 minutes later had it safely back in their grasp. Their crews rowed to victory in 10 out of the 13 events on offer, including a sweep of the Year 9 Quad events - congratulations to the TC program for another brilliant HOR!

Trinity College rowing captain Jack Hansen-Knarhoi with the Hamer Cup. Photo: Total Sports Photography.

The talk of the rowing community in the lead up to the regatta was undoubtedly - who's your pick for the First VIII? Which crew amongst a fiercely competitive field was going to perform on the day? Hale and Trinity had gone toe-to-toe with two wins a piece up until PSA 5, where Hale took the final win before the big day - no doubt a confidence boost for the boys in blue. With CCGS also in the mix - second by 1.8 seconds at PSA 5 - the race was hotly anticipated. Trinity took an early lead, and for the next 1500m it was a cat and mouse between TC and Hale as one crew put their bow ball ahead before the other crawled back into the leading position. It was anybody's race - with the chase pack for the first half of the race, Christ Church launched an almighty surge to put themselves in contention for at least silver with 500m to go. As the last stretch of the race unfolded, CCGS put their bow ball ahead of TC, who had started to falter. Taking advantage of this tussle for a minor placing, Hale took advantage and with one massive final effort with 100m to go, secured their spot on the Challenge Cup itself - an emphatic win in the blue riband event.

The Hale School First VIII with the Challenge Cup. Photo: Total Sports Photography

The Schools Pathway Program is a Rowing Australia initiative for the best schoolboy and schoolgirl rowers in each state to compete against each other. The aim of the Pathway Program is to expose school rowers and coaches to the next level of rowing. It is a chance to experience the national rowing selection process, compete against their school counterparts from around the country, to work with high-level coaches & support staff and encourage school rowers to make the next step in their rowing pathway.

Congratulations to the following athletes who have been selected to the 2024 Pathway Team:

Schoolgirl Squad

Schoolboy Squad

Coaches

The team will travel to Penrith, NSW from 13 - 16 April to contest the Pathway Regatta in 8+ and 4x+ crews. Best of luck to these young athletes.

World Cup 1 kicks off next week (12 - 14 April) as the first international regatta of the Olympic & Paralympic year. This regatta will see the Australia A team throw down in Varese, Italy as their only scheduled overseas regatta of the year - lots to play for. Australia doesn't usually race at this regatta so it's a thrill to have some green & gold to barrack for on the livestream!! 

WA athletes to look out for are Alex Rossi (WARC) and Jack Cleary (WARC) who make up half the Men's Quad - this crew is filled out by Caleb Antill and Campbell Watts. This crew raced at the recent Australian Rowing Championships and won the OM4x in a time of 5:55.98. They will go head to head with nine other crews, and their result could earn points for Australia in the overall World Cup series pointscore.

Good luck boys!!

Read World Rowing's preview here

Bookmark the Regatta Website here to follow the draw & results.

🌟🌟Perfect Balance Rowing have a container of Swift boats coming to shore in WA very soon! That means - new boats around to try & take home.🌟🌟

Rene Brovelli is your friendly WA representative - any enquiries, please get in touch at rene@pbrowing.com.au and head to the PBR website to browse their range.

PBR have all you need for your spares kit and regatta check box. Please visit www.perfectbalancerowing.com for our full spare parts list and boats in stock. 

You can also contact Rene on 0481 995 443.

Fremantle Rowing Club is excited to announce that scholarships applications are now open for the 2024-25 season . 

This is a new initiative to the club, and one that is targeted to those aged 18-21 who are studying or undertaking an apprenticeship. We want to support athletes studying and remove one more barrier to keep them in the sport.

This scholarship will cover the full Fremantle Rowing Club membership fee for season 2024-25.

If you, or someone you know (especially those that have not continued rowing after school) are interested, please see our website for more information and the full terms and conditions.

Applications close midnight April 30.

Head here for more information & to apply: https://fremantlerowing.com/scholarships/

Westies are busy gearing up for the new Club season and will have an Open Day on the 7th April for any interested rowers of all abilities.  There will be the chance to ergo race our top athletes, free BBQ, win mega top prizes and also learn about our new social rowing program.

There will also be the chance to see the investment into a new Gym at the Shed and meet the Club coaching team led by Tyler Clement (Junior Development Head Coach) and Joely Patterson (Interim Club Head Coach) plus all the other coaches supporting Westies this season.  Tyler and Joely will run the first half of the Club season with our new Head Coach due to arrive later in the season, and will work closely with Stefano Balosso Westies High Performance Coach.

Contact Vanessa and Nick at wa@wintechracing.com.au