Australian Rowing Championships Underway

The last remaining members of the “Oarsome foursome” Drew Ginn and James Tomkins will be in search of a new name as they dominated the coxless pair of the Australian Rowing Championships at Nagambie Lakes, Australia and marked their intention to once again take on the world in the event this coming season.

Their time of 6.23.51 was not far off their best times they achieved back in 1999 when they dominated the pair at the World Championships even though they admitted that they were ‘just dealing with the rough conditions,’ over the second half of the 2000 meter race.

But Tomkins and Ginn were just ahead of a “small miracle” second place by the Western Australian combination Stefan Szczurowski and Ron Snook, back in rowing after serious injury to his leg during the 1999 and 2000 season. The pair rowed in 6.08 seconds behind the gold medallists.

Favourites in the womens pairs, Monique Heinke and Emily Martin lead home a class field which included seven members of last years world champion women’s eight crew.

Second place was secured by Kristina Larsen and Rachel Taylor, and third position by Kyeema Doyle and Jodi Winter.

The men’s light weight single scull turned out to be a battle of experience with three Olympians returning to competition and taking out the medals.

Anthony Edwards from Ballarat led from start to finish, recording a time of 7.01.34 – over 2 seconds clear of Haimish Karrasch from the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) with Tasmanian, Darren Darren Balmforth taking out third.

Canadian champion Fiona Milne, competing for Melbourne University, proved too good for the Australian scullers when she finished almost 5 seconds clear of South Australian, Amber Halliday who had a tight battle with her training partner, Sally Causby just 0.4 seconds behind her in 3rd place.

Rowing stars Gen Loftus and Ben Cureton dominated the men’s lightweight pair.

The duo blasted out of the start to clear a boat length lead in the early stages of the race. Their technical efficiency in the rough conditions were not challenged for the whole race which confirmed that they will be hot favourites for a berth in the Australian team to compete at the World Rowing Championships in Seville, Spain later this year.

Commenting on how to gain top form 21 year old Cureton claimed ‘It’s all a balance between hard work and recovering properly, that’s the what you have to do to row fast.’

Olympic silver medallist Simon Burgess, teamed with new partner, Rob Mitchell made a late charge for the line but the champion Western Australian crew proved that they were just too good.

Queensland sculler Duncan Free also made his intentions clear of again being Australia’s sculler at the World Championships in the men’s single when he pushed away from the consistent, Craig Jones from the AIS to win his third national title in as many years.

The red white and blue colours of the AIS adorned all three positions of the podium in the women’s single sculls. Western Australian Amber Bradley lead home the AIS trio ahead of last years champion, Tasmanian Dana Faletic, with Donna Martin from Canberra taking third.

Seven of 22 open category finals have already been raced and the remaining 15 open finals will take place on Friday and Saturday. The Australian National Championships take place over 6 days, from March 5 to 10.

Compiled from reports by Andrew Butler, Rowing Australia.