Hagan Wins World Cup Silver

WAIS athlete Alex Hagan has won a silver medal at World Cup 2 in Italy as a member of the Australian women’s four.

In the non-Olympic boat class, Australia entered two crews, taken from the Women’s Eight that would race later in the day.

The Australia 1 crew made up of Chatterton, Hagan, Sutherland and Bateman were quick out the blocks in a bid to chase down the USA Four who would ultimately win the race, but the crew held it’s pace and nerve to take the silver, while fellow team-mates Lucy Stephan, Hannah Vermeersch (WAIS), Rosie Popa and Meaghan Volker finished just outside the medals in fourth.

Post-race, Alex Hagan explained the decision to separate the eight was in fact to strengthen the boat for world championships.

“The Eight was broken into two fours to give us some extra race practice, but the ultimate goal is to be in the Eight and to qualify it for Rio by finishing in the top five at the World Rowing Championships in September,” she said.

“We are glad to have had this opportunity to see where we are at this point in the season, these are all stepping stones to the end goal to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.”

The Australians re-formed to contest the eight final later on the final day, finishing sixth, behind the front three of USA, Canada and GB.

WAIS rower Perry Ward and his men’s lightweight four crew missed out on a finals berth in their event, after a sixth place finish in the semi final was not enough to see them through.

WAIS head rowing coach Rhett Ayliffe coached the Australian men’s double in Italy, with his crew of James McRae and Alex “Sacha” Belonogoff winning a silver medal behind world championship winning brothers, Valent and Martin Sinkovic of Croatia.