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Two Gold, four Silver and one Bronze for the Australian Rowing Team at the World Rowing Championships in Bulgaria.
Congratulations to the Australian Rowing Team for a strong finish to their 2018 International Campaign at the World Rowing Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The finals action kicked off Friday with Australia taking Silver in the PR3 Men's Pair. James Talbot and Jed Alschwager, who only began rowing 18 months ago, finished just a second behind Canada to take Silver ahead of France. “It feels amazing, the way the week started, I was very nervous as it was my first time representing Australia. To turn it around, brush the nerves off and get done what we needed to do which was awesome,” said Altschwager. Saturday saw the Australian Men's Four claim back-to-back titles in a thrilling race to the line. The crew of Alexander Hill, Jack Hargreaves, Spencer Turrin and Joshua Hicks powered out of the start rating 50 strokes per minute to secure a clear lead. The crew held off attacks from both Italy and Great Britain in the sprint to the line to take Gold.
The Australian Women’s Four also left their mark in Plovdiv taking silver. “It was a tough race and it’s great to see how much the competition has stepped up since last year. I’m really proud of the girls and credit to the USA for how they raced. This is only the second year of the Olympiad and, ultimately, we’re building towards Tokyo” said Lucy Stephan.
Saturday's silver streak continued with the Men’s Quadruple Scull , who put in an incredible race to take home silver. “Everything just came together today, it’s just hard to believe my first time at a Senior World Championship, I get to win a medal, it’s a really special thing. It’s only a very small group of people who have won a medal at a World Championship, and I’m proud to be one of them” said Caleb Antill.
The medal haul continued on Sunday with Erik Horrie claiming his fifth consecutive World Championships title in the PR1 Men’s Single Scull, in record-breaking time, the Australian Men’s Eight claiming silver and the Women’s Eight claiming bronze, the first medal an Australian Women’s Eight has won in 12 years. “This one hurt a lot more than the other four. It’s unbelievable, to get out there and win your fifth world title, it’s hard enough just winning one. This win I think is a tribute to the team I have behind me at this event, my coach Jason Baker, Gordon Marcks the Head Para-rowing Coach, our Performance Director Bernard Savage, all the medical staff, the whole Australian Rowing Team – all week I’ve felt incredibly supported,” said Erik.
The Australian Men's Eight crossed the line in a time of 5 minutes 26.11 seconds, just 0.03 of a second ahead of Great Britain. Post-race, Liam Donald, making his Senior World Championships debut said, “It’s pretty exciting to have won my first senior medal, and it was a good performance from the guys out there. “It was a tough start, but the tail wind came in, in the second thousand, and that’s where our fitness paid off to come through and crawl back up the field and push into contention for a medal. We’re really happy to have won a medal, and now it’s about building for next year and beyond.”
For the Australian Women's Eight, it was the first medal since 2006. The crew, coached by John Keogh, were leading at the 500 metre mark, before moving into second for the middle thousand with USA taking the lead. “We were super loose and super relaxed, and did a really good job of staying internal. We honestly did a good job of executing our race plan, we had a few hairy strokes but nothing we can’t handle. We’re stoked with the race, we felt we didn’t let any of them go, even with the sprint, the US may have won but they weren’t that far ahead of us,” added Jacinta Edmunds.
The Australian Team were racing in their custom 776BC performance rowing kit. Congratulations to all of the crews from Team 776BC on some spectacular performances.
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