07 Dec 2011
Mannum's flooded rowers remembered
By Melissa Bray
Well, going on just down the road were rowing preparations for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games at Lake Wendouree. The Games would start in late November and see the great Russian sculler Vyacheslav Ivanov win his first of three consecutive Olympic gold medals. Australia’s Stuart Mackenzie would finish second.
Back in Mannum five rowers were training on the flooded waters of their hometown’s main street. Ironically Australia was in the middle of one if its greatest recorded droughts.
Australian rowing journalist Phillip Mangelsdorf, recently attended the 50 year reunion of Mannum to commemorate the disaster of “the biggest flood seen on the River Murray by white man” and noted a photo that has become synonymous with the disaster.
“One of the highlights of the weekend was the reunion of some Mannum Rowing Club members who were photographed in 1956 training on the flood waters which filled the main street of the town of Mannum for several months,” says Mangelsdorf.
The rowing link goes deeper. The sculler in the now famous photo, John Banks, and the number three man from the crew Gerald Chadwick, both went on to represent the Mannum Rowing Club two years later in Australian rowing’s first interstate lightweight men’s four race in 1958.
“History shows that the standard and quality of Australian lightweight men’s racing over the next 10 years saw the total acceptance of the lightweight class into the Australian national interstate competition,” describes Mangelsdorf.
Following this success of lightweight rowing, Australian officials went on to promote lightweight rowing at the international level.
It took a 50th anniversary to bring back the memory.
Lake Wendouree held its 50th anniversary last week but the celebrations took place on dry land. The lake is now all but dried up.
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