Life Membership: Noel Donaldson

NOEL DONALDSON

Life Membership of Rowing Victoria is the sport’s highest honour. It is reserved for those who have demonstrated significant, sustained and high-quality service that enhances the reputation and future of rowing through the State by virtue of their considerable contribution to rowing.

This reward is granted in recognition of a lifetime of outstanding service to the sport of rowing.

Noel Donaldson is best known as the coach of the Victorian based world conquering ‘Oarsome Foursome’ since their inception in late 1989. With three World Championships (1990, 1991, 1998) and back-to-back Olympic gold medals (1992, 1996), they were the most feared coxless four in the world.

Noel began his representative journey in 1979, as he was selected to represent Victoria and Australia as the coxswain of the men’s heavyweight eight. Victoria won the Kings Cup, and the Australian crew finished fourth in the World Championships.

After the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Donaldson took the position of the Senior Rowing Coach at the VIS, and in 1993 became the Head Coach of Rowing at the Institute. From February 2001 he held both the VIS position and the National Men’s Head Coach position with Rowing Australia.

Noel was the coach of the men’s pair in their bronze medal performance at the Sydney 2000 Olympics games and in 2004, was appointed the High-Performance Director and Head Coach of Rowing Australia, tasked to lead the rowing team through the 2004 Athens Olympics and towards the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

He resumed the national men’s head coach role again between 2009 to the 2012 London Olympics before heading to New Zealand as their Head Coach in 2013.

After that stint in New Zealand, where he also successfully coached the New Zealand Pair through a period of sustained success and Olympic Gold medals, he returned to the Victorian Institute of Sport in 2019.

In 2020, Noel joined rowing Victoria as Head Coach and Chairman of Selectors for the State team.

It is his quality of work and his concern of the wellbeing of the athlete that continue to this day that are the hallmarks of his coaching.

Even after his years of hands-on coaching at the top level, Noel continues to develop young talented athletes and coaches and his advice continues to be sought by those currently running the elite program.

He is a passionate and proud Victorian. Noel strives to add value to ensure the success of high-performance outcomes in Victoria, working closely with Rowing Australia and Victorian clubs in identifying and developing rowers who have the potential to be selected for Rowing Australia’s (RA’s) National Training Centres (NTC’s), National Teams and ultimately achieve podium results on the global stage.

Noel has been awarded the Australian Coaching Council and the Confederation of Australian Sport’s Coach of the Year Award in 1992 and has also been awarded the Victorian Coaching Centre Coach of the Year on two occasions 1996 and 1998. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1999, the Victorian Rowing Hall of Fame in 2010 and became a Rowing Australia Life Member in 2020.

The Board of Rowing Victoria recommends that Noel Donaldson is awarded Life Membership of Rowing Victoria.

Noel was awarded Life Membership at the 146th Rowing Victoria AGM on the 23rd October 2022.

For a full list of Noel's achievements, see here.