Rowing Australia's unprecedented and unanimous decision to pre-select Ginn and Tomkins for Athens

Ginn & Tomkins en route to Athens
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It takes high levels of confidence to pre-select Olympic athletes more than eight months before the Olympic Games. But yesterday, Rowing Australia announced its decision to do just that. One week in advance of Australia’s selection trials, the RA board unanimously agreed to pre-select Drew Ginn and James Tomkins to compete in Athens.

Never before had Rowing Australia selected Olympic competitors so long before the Games, but it was designed to allow Ginn and Tomkins to pace their preparations for Athens while making allowances for their age and past success.

According to Rowing Australia board member John Boultbee, the pre-selection was ?a recognition of Ginn and Tomkins outstanding record, but more importantly, a move to concentrate other athletes to other boats. All of the other men’s sweeps can now focus on fours and eights.?

This utter confidence follows the duo’s performance at the 2003 World Championships in August where they finished first in the pair, knocking the reigning World Champions, Great Britain, out of the medals and holding off Olympians Croatia and South Africa.

On top of this the track record of Ginn and Tomkins is nothing short of stunning. 38-year-old Tomkins has been part of all of the nine gold medals won by Australia in the World Championships or Olympic Games in the last fifty years. Younger teammate, 29-year-old Ginn, has been part of the last four.

Ginn described the surprise move as “courageous”, but felt other rowers would support the decision. “When we were competing last year, the comment from a lot of athletes was `why don’t they go ahead and select you guys now’.”

The early Athens selection had its germination at Sydney 2000 where it was felt over-competition in the pairs stopped Australia from formulating a strong challenge in fours and eights.

Ginn and Tomkins are coached by Chris O’Brien who has worked with the duo since 2002. O’Brien is currently the head coach of the Melbourne University Boat Club and has international experience that goes back to 1998.