Rowing wins 2019 WAIS Program of the Year Award
Rowing claimed the Program of the Year award at the 2019 WAIS Annual Awards of Excellence at the Pan Pacific Hotel, November 14.
During 2019 the WAIS rowing program supported six athletes to the Australian team for the Junior World Championships and a further five to the Under 23 World Championships, with two members of the junior team still at high school.
At the Under 23 World Championships Giorgia Patten won silver in the women’s Pair, while Hamish Henriques earned gold in the men’s double skulls at the Junior World Championships.
Seven athletes have been selected for the National Training Centre intake including graduates Annabelle McIntyre, Bronwyn Cox and Josh Hicks who claimed medals at the World Championships.
Athletes and coaches from rowing were nominated for multiple awards in a sign of the high quality work being achieved through the program. Bronwyn Cox took home the Young Athlete of the Year Awards, with Ayliffe and Hewlett both nominated for Coach of the Year and McIntyre for Athlete of the Year.
“We are in a good space, Jamie has done a fantastic job at recruiting talent. I think we are working really well together as a team and our team is really strong,” Ayliffe said.
“I’m quite surprised we won as the sailing program has been exceptional this year and the swimming program are really making changes to improve their results so we are pretty proud we got this.”
Hewlett echoed the sentiments. “There has got to be a lot of credit to Rhett, when he first came in to the state, there was the proposition, we were there to support high performance athletes with the assumption that high performance athletes just sort of pop out of existence and then we take them under our wing.
“Where as I think there has got to be a lot of credit given to Rhett for taking the risk of going actually we’ve got to go out and find them. We’ve got to get in to the community and do whatever we can to produce athletes. And it was pretty great for Steve to back that vision.”