WA Rowers Produce Golden Weekend
WAIS rowing athletes enjoyed a productive weekend at the Sydney International Regatta Centre in Penrith over the weekend with Amber Bradley part of the Women’s Open Quad Scull squad that claimed the national title and Western Australia retaining the Penrith Cup on its 50th anniversary.
Bradley, competing as part of the Mosman Composite/NSWIS crew earned her third national title of an impressive meet combining with Zoe Uphill (NSW), Kerry Hore (TAS) and Amy Ives (NSW) to win comfortably, 5.44sec ahead of a Sydney Uni Composite crew.
WAIS Rowing Coach Antonio Maurogiovanni was pleased with Bradley’s efforts.
“The results for Amber are just a conformation of her form, but it is particularly pleasing given she is only recently back from injury,” said Maurogiovanni.
Western Australia retained its Penrith Cup title after finishing ahead of arch rivals Tasmania and Queensland in a time of 6:05.83min. WAIS athletes Ben Cureton, Todd Skipworth, Perry Ward and Ross Brown put together a strong race that was made more symbolic given the race was celebrating its 50th anniversary, and being competed in the region it was originated in.
Ben Cureton spoke of the squad’s pride at having won on such a special occasion.
“The Penrith Cup is so important to lightweight rowing and rowing in general and to win on the 50th anniversary makes it an extra special feeling,” Cureton said.
“We have such a terrific rivalry in the event with Tasmania, so it was good to get one up on them this time around.”
Coach Maurogiovanni suggested the team learnt a lot from their defeat at the hands of Tasmania previously at the Nationals.
“Winning a second successive Penrith Cup was a great achievement,” said Maurogiovanni.
“We lost to Tasmania at the nationals and worked on a few technical issues and a different race strategy ahead of this meet, which appeared to pay off.”
Western Australia finished third in one of the closest King’s Cup races in recent memory. The WA squad set off with a blistering pace and led through the first 1500m before NSW and Victoria came steaming through to set up a grandstand finish.
NSW eventually claimed the line honours with a time of 5:32.89min just 0.21sec ahead of Victoria in second. WA finished a close third in a compelling finale.
In the Queen’s Cup the Victorian crew of Sarah Heard, Catriona Sens, Robyn Selby Smith, Phoebe Stanley, Pauline Frasca, Fleur Chew, Kim Crow and Emily Martin, coxed by Lizzy Patrick raced to victory by 4 boat lengths to win by 12 seconds from Western Australia and Queensland. They won in a time of 6:09.57min to take out their seventh title in ten years.