Rowing Victoria Secures Head Coach Funding Grant   

Rowing Victoria are extremely pleased to announce the securing of new funding to ensure the ongoing engagement of a Victorian Head Coach/Pathway Lead. This is vital to ensure the continuation of our strong, viable and successful Pathway Program through the state. Through the AIS’ Performance Pathways Workforce Grant program, the grant of $200,000 has been awarded specifically to support the employment and operations of a Victorian Pathways Head Coach role and related support activities. This is an enormous show of support from the AIS for our Pathway activities and demonstrates confidence in our Pathway and programs. Rowing Victoria is extremely appreciative of their backing at this time. The Grant gives us the opportunity to continue the already positive work in the State and provide proof of concept and strategy long-term, ensuring an athlete centric approach to the development of the sport through the state. Victorian athletes are currently filling 30% of the 2021 Australian Teams with the intake of Pathway athletes into the national program higher than any other State. This appointment will, as has been the case for the previous 12+ months, be led through Rowing Victoria in partnership with Rowing Australia. Further details regarding the appointment of the Victorian Head Coach/ Pathway lead will be announced shortly.

Rowing Australia Life Memberships

Rowing Victoria congratulates Jeff Sykes and Reg McKay on being awarded life memberships of Rowing Australia.

Rowing Victoria Life Member and former Rowing Australia President and Boat Race Official, Reg McKay, passed away in January of 2021, after a lifetime of service to the sport of rowing. The father of two-time Olympic Gold Medallist, Mike McKay, Reg made an enormous contribution to the sport at all levels and as an administrator will be remembered as one who always sought to provide a sporting environment for all to achieve their best. He umpired and administered the sport at the highest levels, having been an international umpire for decades and he was also President of Rowing Australia from 1989 to 1994.

Jeff Sykes is an Australian Rowing Team alumni and famous boat builder. The Corio Bay Rowing Club member rowed at the elite level from 1960 to 1978 and represented Australia a number of times in that period.

Sykes was apprenticed to his father’s boat building business in Geelong, and in 1966, built his own racing shell to compete in the Australian Rowing Championships and this was the genesis of his own business, Sykes Racing, a Geelong-based racing shell manufacturer. Sykes Racing initially focussed on smaller boats and had success as rowers of their sculls and pairs won Australian national championships. In 1973 the Western Australian senior men's eight had King's Cup success in a Sykes boat and from 1974 Sykes boats were being used in all boat classes for Australian representative crews. Their boats are currently used by both of Rowing Australia’s National Training Centres.

While he no longer has ownership of the boat business (he sold it in 2000), Jeff is still active in the rowing community and continues to represent Corio Bay at Masters rowing events.”

Exciting new Infrastructure at Carrum

Rowing Victoria is pleased to highlight the placement of three new rowing specific floating pontoons which are currently being installed at the NWSC Carrum. These pontoons will enable easy access and egress and are situated in front of the boatsheds, adjacent to the finish tower. Each of the three pontoons will be circa 20m long (twice as long as the WIP photos indicate) enabling easy use by all boats. These installations form a great first step in the planned rejuvenation of Carrum.

Congratulations to the 2021 Victorian Masters State Team and Victorian Athletes

Congratulations to the 2021 Victorian Masters State Team that competed at the Australian Masters Nationals last weekend in Adelaide. It was great to see the Big White V in action again. All Victorians should be very proud of how the team conducted themselves despite the challenges which had to be overcome in getting to race day. Everyone did a great job! An additional well done and congratulations for the many other medals earned throughout the Nationals Regatta by all clubs with Melbourne Rowing Club being the best performed Victorian club and Melbourne’s Tanja Nishibata as the best performed Victorian athlete. Tanja also won the CoC 1x event. Well done Rowing SA on hosting at the last minute so we could get the event off and running.

Congratulations to the Women’s Quad on taking out the line honours again being the fourth time in a row in recent years that we have won this event. The Women’s Eight had a great race in coming third and posting a 9 second personal best time. We look forward to being able to build on this result for next year. The Men’s Quad came together well with some hard fought and tight racing both in the Interstate race but also various events at the Nationals. The Men’s Eight had a great row against some very strong crews who reversed results the next day despite last minute crew changes due to the border closure.

Thank you to Melbourne Rowing Club, Essendon Rowing Club and Yarra Yarra Rowing Club for their support to the team throughout the whole process.

Thanks also to our wonderful volunteer coaches and Head of Selectors Noel Donaldson for supporting the team tirelessly through this process, despite the many setbacks we had along the way the coaches remained positive and upbeat through it all, whether they made it to SA or not.

Thank you to Noel’s support team of Selectors for their efforts in selecting a wonderful team for 2021. Well done to all adapting to some changes in this process for 2021 which will now hold us in good stead moving forward.

We know that all Victorians trained and raced very hard in the lead up to this regatta so we congratulate you for your commitment and dedication to Victorian Masters competition. We look forward to building on the momentum we have started for the 2022 campaign. Resulting from a State-by-State comparison using the Australia Cup points score method, Queensland topped the table with 25 points, followed in 2nd place by the Big White V on 22 points, so we are not far off topping the table. Look out next year!

Go the Big White V!

Stay Safe

Unfortunately, we’ve returned to restricted access to our normal way of training and participating in our great sport. Communication has already gone out to club officials highlighting the relevant restrictions so please adhere to the published guidelines and opportunities.. Rowing Victoria will continue to update you on the relevant opportunities and restrictions as the situation evolves.

Stay safe, so we can keep rowing.

PRE 2021 STATE TEAM UNIFORM SALE​

All Victorian State Team Members have the opportunity to purchase excess Team kit supplied by 776 BC. When placing your order please confirm in the notes section what year and crew you were in when you represented Victoria. This applies to all three representative teams; Pathway, Senior and Masters. Only the sizes listed are available. Please view our website here to see all the sizes and range available.

Any questions please contact our State Pathway Coordinator, Jen Szuster on Jen@rowingvictoria.asn.au

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