Ayliffe set to Coach at Rio 2016

WAIS Rowing Head Coach, Rhett Ayliffe was recently selected as an Australian Rowing Team coach for the upcoming Rowing World Cups.

Ayliffe has coached many World Championship winning crews including, 2008 Beijing Olympic, Men’s Double Scull gold medalists, David Crawshay and Scott Brennan.

The opportunity comes with a large time commitment but the honour isn’t lost on Ayliffe who said he’s excited to have been selected to coach in such a small team of four as previously a group of ten to twelve coaches take on the job.

He was selected alongside Lyall McCarthy, John Driessen and Tom Westgarth, all experienced coaches on the world stage.

The coaches will lead the 2016 Australian Rowing Team at Rowing World Cups Two and Three, in Switzerland and Poland respectively.

Ayliffe said that they are hoping to win a medal but there will be tough competition.

“Our strongest competition will be New Zealand and GB (Great Britain)”.

Rowing Australia focused on performance in their coaching selections aiming to achieve greater clarity and enhanced performance leading in to Rio 2016.

By achieving this focus they hope to win a number of medals across all rowing events at the upcoming World Cups and the Olympics.

At the finalisation of crew selections each coach will be allocated to their crew/s.

The team will head to Canberra for training before heading to Italy from May to August for further preparation heading into Rio 2016.