WA Athletes Make Strong Start to Rowing World Champs

WA’s representative rowers competing at the World
Championships in Austria have enjoyed a strong start to the week’s racing.

 

Annabelle McIntyre and her teammate Jessica
Morrison enjoyed a victory in their opening heat of the women’s pair which will
take them safely through to the quarter-finals.

 

Austria was sweltering through some warm summer heat on
day one of competition, but luckily for McIntyre and Morrison, their race was
early on in the schedule, meaning they beat the worst of the conditions.

 

“I think we had the best conditions of the day, very
little wind, warm but not too hot. We went out to do a job, and we’re happy
with the outcome of today’s race, it now about refocusing for our women’s eight
heat, before turning out attention again back to the pair.

 

“It was great to hear the Aussie supporters as we’re
coming down the course and also as they cheered us over the line,” said
McIntyre.

 

The women’s eight heat that McIntyre referred to occurred
on the second day of racing with the Australians finishing second in their heat
behind USA. USA and New Zealand both secured quota spots at next year’s Olympic
Games in Tokyo by virtue of winning their respective heats.

 

A further three quota spots are available in the A-Final,
which will form the chief ambition for the Australian eight crew that also
features Western Australia’s Bronwyn Cox.

 

With the mercury hitting 31 degrees on day one, the new
look men’s quadruple scull of David Watts,
Cameron Girdlestone, Campbell Watts and Hamish Playfair came out firing in
their heat.

 

Needing a top two finish to secure a semi-final place,
the crew, stroked by David Watts, were second at the 500m mark to Germany,
before muscling into the lead to take the win in a time of 5 minutes 51 seconds.

 

Post-race David Watts said, “I thought we had quite a
good hit out, obviously this is a new crew – with the new bow pair coming
across from the double – so we were a little uncertain as to where we stood
coming into the competition. We executed the race as well as we possibly could
at this point in the competition and we’re thankful to have got a result out of
it.

 

“Conditions were pretty variable but it’s a fair course,
so we all got the same conditions. Training in Italy for the last few months
has definitely helped for the heat acclimatisation.”

 

The men’s pair of Joshua Hicks and
Sam Hardy were drawn in Lane 3 of their heat alongside world championship favourites,
the Sinkovic brothers of Croatia.

 

The Australia duo had a good start and maintained second
position throughout the heat to book a spot in Wednesday’s quarter-finals.