Sydney University Boat Club members Nick Wheatley and Jack Hargreaves finished their World Championship campaign, at Varese, Italy, with silver medals in the Under 23 Men’s Pair.
They settled in early to second place and pushed ahead of the favourites Italy after 700m. In the last 500m the Italians were able to come back to gain the gold with the SUBC rowers settling for a well-earned silver.
The crew was coached by SUBC Head Coach, Mark Prater.
In the Under 23 Men’s Eight, James Medway, who is now at Harvard University, rowed in the bow seat for Australia. This crew of US-based Aussie athletes rowed a consistent race to overtake the US in the last few hundred metres and also get a silver medal.
Development tour
Meanwhile, the SUBC Under 23 Men’s Eight Development Tour to Canadian Henley got under way on July 20 when the team flew out of Sydney to Toronto.
Under the guidance of Senior Coach Rick van Hooydonk and assistant Coach Tom Sacre, the crew has been staying and training in London, Ontario, and will move up to St Catherine’s for the Canadian Henley Regatta where they will contest the Under 23 eights and the senior and championship eights.
Most of the crew are in their first and second year out of school and this tour will be an important step in their rowing development.
Parents of team members and the club held a Garden Party at St Andrew’s College on July 6 and raised just over $50,000 towards the cost of this tour.
SUBC spokesman Chris Noel said the club would like to thank all the crew and parents who worked hard and helped make this event a success. “Also, thanks to all our friends and associates who donated prizes and make donations for the trip and to all those who attended and bought tickets, raffle tickets and auction items,” he said.
Women’s Boat Club christening
Sydney University Women’s Rowing Club will be christening a new boat at the Glebe Boatshed at 4pm on Sunday, August 10.
All interested are invited to the boatshed at Ferry Rd, Glebe, to support this event.
Please advise your attendance to: [email protected]
Success for Under 21 national representatives
Three Sydney University rowers won medals competing for Australian Under 21 crews against New Zealand in the first leg of the 2014 Trans-Tasman series rowed at the Sydney International Rowing Centre at Penrith.
The format for the series includes nine male and nine female rowers from each country competing in different boats over three days.
Day One included single sculls, pairs and lightweight double sculls, Day Two included fours and quads, and Day Three was for the eights.
Sydney University Boat Club member Alex Purnell was on the podium on each of the three days, winning the men’s single, and being part of the winning crews in the men’s quad sculls and the men’s eight. SUBC team-mate Franc Gourlas was coxswain in the winning men’s eight.
Sydney University’s Holly Lawrence was involved in two winning crews, in the women’s lightweight double and the women’s quad scull.
SUBC was also represented by Al Matthews, who was one of two national coaches for the Australian men’s team.
The second leg of the Trans-Tasman series will be raced at lake Karapiro, Hamilton, New Zealand in late August.
Sasha in the medals
Sydney University Boat Club member Sasha Belonogoff continued a remarkable year on the water when he won a silver medal in the men’s double scull at the recent World Rowing Cup III regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland.
The 2013 Sydney University Sportsman of the Year teamed with James McRae to finish second behind the Lithuanian pair, with Britain taking the bronze.
It was the second medal of the season for Belonogoff and McRae, who missed out on silver by 0.05 seconds in the World Rowing Cup II men’s double scull held in Aiguebelette, France, in June. That race was won by Croatian brothers, Martin and Valent Sinkovic, with Azerbaijan taking the silver and Australia the bronze.
Belonogoff won gold in the men’s single scull at the World Cup 1 regatta at the Sydney International Rowing Centre in March, before teaming with McRae for the next two regattas of the World Cup series.
At each regatta, in each event of the World Rowing Cup, the highest placed boat from a national federation in each boat class is awarded the following points: first (8 points), second (6), third (5), fourth (4), fifth (3), sixth (2) and seventh (1).
At the first two regattas, the crew with the most points in that event is declared the World Rowing Cup leader and receives the ‘World Rowing Cup Leader Bib.
After the third World Rowing Cup regatta, the crew with the most points in each boat class is declared the World Cup winner and receives the World Rowing Cup for that boat class. The nation with the most points overall from all boat classes is declared winner of the Overall World Rowing Cup.
Podium time at World Cup
Sydney University rowers were among the medals on the final day of the recent World Cup II regatta at Lake Aiguebelette, France.
Sally Kehoe, a former SUSF scholarship holder, won gold with Olympia Aldersley in the women’s double scull, edging out Magdalena Fularczyk and Natalia Madaj of Poland for the silver and Meghan O’Leary and Ellen Tomek of the US for bronze. Valuable World Cup points came with the medals.
Kehoe and Aldersley went into the French regatta with form on the board having won the first leg of the World Cup in Sydney. But the semi-finals indicated it would be a close race for gold and that’s how it panned out.
SUSF Elite Athlete Program (EAP) member Chris Cunningham-Reid, and former EAP member Fergus Pragnell collected silver medals when the Australian boat finished behind Great Britain. USA finished third.
And SUBC’s Sasha Belonogoff, another scholarship holder, teamed with James McRae to win bronze in the men’s double scull. The Croatian pairing of brothers Martin and Valent Sinkovic, the reigning world champions, took gold, with Boris Yotov and Aleksandar Aleksandrov of Azerbaijan collecting silver.
The third and final leg of the Rowing World Cup will be raced in Lucerne, Switzerland, in three weeks, with the World Championships to be held in Amsterdam later in the year.
