Rowing Australia Amends Selection Process

Rowing Australia has taken steps to end the talent drain by selecting a Men’s Coxed Four for the Australian National U23 team from rowers currently representing Universities in the United States of America.

In recent years prestigious Universities such as Princeton have offered scholarships to a number of talented young Australian rowers. Previously by taking up those scholarships rowers were disqualified from national selection.

“This was an obvious change to make to our selection process” said Andrew Matheson, Rowing Australia’s National High Performance Director. “We’ve just been losing too many of our best athletes over the years to the United States and we had to find a way to keep them as part of our national representative program. This way we get the best of both worlds. The athletes get the experience of attending some of the world’s best Universities and Rowing Australia gets the benefit of their rowing prowess and keep them as part of our development pathway”.

At trials supervised by Rowing Australia coaches Curtis Jordan and Paul McGann at Princeton University, a high quality Men’s Coxed Four comprising Ben Coombs, Harry Picone, former WAIS scholarship holder Sam Collins Owen Symington and William Raven (cox) were selected to represent Australia.

Curtis Jordan, himself a former coach at Princeton, was delighted with what he saw.

“These athletes, despite spending little time together in the boat and focusing predominantly on the US collegiate programs, achieved excellent speed and rhythm. It’s exciting to have them as part of our team for the Under 23 World Championships in Amsterdam.”

-Rowing Australia