WA Rowers Continue International Success at WC3
What an absolute treat to see the WA elites produce brilliant performances with the Aussie team at the last of the World Cup series regattas! Have a look below for race wrap ups for each of the WA athletes' crews...
Women's Pair
Athletes: A. McIntyre (FRC) & J. Morrison
Result: Gold
Continuing their brilliant season, Jess and Annabelle came away from WC3 with another win! Progressing easily through the heats and semis, with margins of 3.5 and 9 seconds respectively over their nearest challengers, the final was a chance for them to race the 2023 European Champs Romania for the first time. As expected, they controlled the race from out of the blocks and led the field all the way to finish in a time of 7:00.84.
Annabelle: "We knew the crews in the Final were very strong, we had to push a bit earlier that we normally do, but we're very happy with that performance... We're going to build on our strong points and work on stuff that we need to strengthen - not necessarily weaknesses - stuff that will make us go faster."
Men's Double
Athletes: J. Cleary (WARC) & H. Moore
Result: Ninth
In one of the deepest fields in the whole regatta, this new combination raced extremely well to finish in the top end of their B-Final. In their heat they were just a few seconds behind eventual A-Finalists Romania, and got through their Repechage to the A/B Semis easily. However in the Semi they were bumped out of the last A-Final qualifying spot by eventual Bronze medalists, Ireland. In their final they had a super battle for second with the French crew where they were separated by less than half a second!
Women's Four
Athletes: G. Patten (WARC), K. Werry, S. Hawe, L. Stephan
Result: Silver
The Four, who were second at WC2, cruised through the opening round to book their Finals slot. A fast start and stomping rhythm saw the Aussies lead the star-studded field all the way to the 1500m... then the Romanians employed their infamous wind to the line, topping out at a whopping rate 47, and the girls were pipped for line honours by less than half a boat length, with about a length back to third placed GB. Absolute fire cracker of a race!! Bring on World Champs!
Lucy: "We're all racers, that's the cool thing about this crew... there's a lot of guts. So to go out and have a race like that taps into that inner thing that we all love to do"
Women's Eight
Athletes: L. Alton-Triggs, P. Barr, G. Gleeson, O. Aldersey, G. Rowe, J. Swick (SRRC), M. Goodman, B. Cox (UWABC), Cox: H. Verbunt
Result: Silver
In one of the most exciting races of the evening, Bronnie led the Eight to a canvas lead out of the start - and they held onto this 2-second gap through to the 1000m. By the 1500m, GB and Canada had reeled them back and there was less than half a second separating these top three crews! GB found just a little more speed than the rest in the closing stages to take line honours, but the Aussies had done enough work through the race to earn their podium spot.
Men's Eight
Athletes: P. Holt, J. Hicks (SRC), J. Robertson, T. Masters, A. Dawson, J. O'Brien, B. Canham, A. Widdicombe, Cox: K. Brodie
Result: Gold
Wow - the M8s hauled it down the course to win Australia's first international Gold in this event since the Sydney World Cup in 2011! After fending off a seriously quick start by Romania, and letting GB have a nose in front til just shy of the half way mark (talking a gap of 0.05 seconds), they took the rate up to 39 in the back half of the race and never looked back. What a thriller.
Fun fact: WA's Josh Hicks first race on a senior Aussie team was at a World Cup, in Lucerne, in the Men's Eight!!
Jack: "Knew it was going to be a quick start, we had to back in our race plan. It's something we've been trying to trust a bit more than we did in Varese. I think today we did a better job executing than we did a few weeks ago. "
Paddy: "We knew we had a quick last 500, we wanted to be in a good position at that part of the race. It's going so fast, but it's pretty good. We knew we had patches of speed here and there, now we need to go back to training."
For full results, race replays, galleries & race reports, head to World Rowing
The next time we'll see the Aussie Senior team race is at the World Rowing Championships - September 3 - 10 in Belgrade, Serbia!
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