Australian Olympic Youth Festival to be Highly Competitive

The second Australian Olympic Youth Festival to be held in Sydney, Australia is just days away and 1,400 athletes are preparing for competition in the fourteen sports featured on the programme.

The Sydney International Regatta Course at Penrith
© Getty Images

The rowing is scheduled for two days, Thursday January 9^th and Saturday January 11^th and will be held at the Sydney International Regatta Centre at Penrith the same course with the same facilities as used during the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Close to 150 rowers, all under the age of 20, from seven Australian states and New Zealand will be racing the two km course.

The Festival has attracted some of the highly successful Australian Junior Team from the 2002 World Championships. Queensland will be represented by Gold Coast Sculler Eugene Arendsen who won a silver medal at the 2002 World junior Championships in the single scull. NSW has members of the Gold Medal Coxed Four from the World junior Championships.

The festival is staged as an Olympic Games would be held including an opening ceremony that will take place on Wednesday January 8^th. All the rowers will stay together in an Athletes Village. In addition to the rowing all athletes are required to partake in education programs on such topics as anti-doping, goal setting and a range of other topics.

Visit the Rowing Australia website (rowing@rowingaustralia.com.au) for details and stories during the event and also check the official festival web site at www.olympics.com.au