World Rowing award nomination attracts big interest

The World Rowing Coach of the Year award had the widest spread of different nominations with 52 different coaches from around the world receiving a nomination. This included a big presence from France with 17 different French coach’s names being put forward.

The World Rowing Male Crew of the Year attracted nominations for 22 different rowers/teams. The lightweight crews dominated the list with the lightweight men’s single alone having four different names included (Peter Galambos of Hungary, Marcello Miani of Italy, Rajko Hrvat of Slovenia and Lukas Babac of Slovakia). Some of the nominations were for a single member out of a crew including Italy’s Franco Sancassani for the lightweight men’s quadruple sculls.

For the World Rowing Female Crew of the Year the lightweights again featured prominently. Both the lightweight women’s single scull and the lightweight women’s double sculls received three different boats nominated each. The women’s pair also received three different boats being nominated (Sonja Keserac and Maja Anic of Croatia, Helen Glover and Heather Stanning of Great Britain and Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown of New Zealand).

The World Rowing Adaptive Crew of the Year had seven different rowers/crews nominated. This category was first awarded in 2009 with Great Britain’s single sculler, Tom Aggar winning. Aggar has been nominated again this year as he now has another World Champion title under his belt. Aggar also broke his own World Best Time this year.

The World Rowing Distinguished Service to Rowing Medal attracted 30 different people to be nominated. They come from a range of aspects of the sport from administrators to former athletes to a current athlete. Greg Searle of Great Britain gained a nomination. Searle took a 10 year competitive rowing hiatus before making a comeback this year as he works towards the 2012 Olympic Games. Don Rowlands (New Zealand) who won the Distinguished Service to Rowing award in 2009 was again nominated this year. Rowlands was the patron of this year’s World Rowing Championships at Karapiro.

The nominations in these five categories is now in front of the 23 members of the FISA Council who will shortlist their top three in each category. The shortlist then goes to FISA’s executive committee and the relevant commission chair for the final decision.

The awards will be presented at the 2011 World Rowing Coaches Conference on 22 January 2011 at the gala dinner in Windsor, Great Britain.

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