Nationals in Perth

Perth has been sweltering in a heat wave for the whole week of the Australian Rowing Championships and Interstate Regatta so it was hard work even sitting in the shade doing nothing except occasionally walking to the lake’s edge to scream encouragement at a passing boat.
On Friday, my first day at the Champion Lakes Regatta Centre, host of this year’s Nationals, I met Jessye and a few of her mates at 8am to watch a few races then we went for a drive to Cottesloe beach near Fremantle. It’s a beautiful beach with perfect water temperature and we enjoyed two swims after a hearty brunch. I dropped the girls off at their accommodation and spent the evening with Micheal and Lorissa McCarthy, new friends from the week at Mt Buller. For the girls, who had a few days off in the middle of the week, it was a welcome break away from their fairly basic accommodation and the rowing course.

On Saturday I arrived at the course just in time to see the amazing David Crawshay in Mercantile colours winning the Men’s Single Scull Championship for the 3rd year running. He was part of the gold-medal-winning pair at the Beijing Olympics and is the biggest star of Jessye’s club. A very nice chap too by all accounts. That night, for a change of pace, I heard the WASO live for the first time in their very nice concert hall and caught up briefly with old friend Alexander Lazarev who was conducting.

Temperatures continued to soar relentlessly during the weekend and particularly on Sunday which was the Interstate Regatta, Jessye’s big race day. However, with all the silverware to be handed out, racing continued regardless of the 40 degrees. The only concession was to start the day half an hour earlier and squash the events together as much as possible so that racing was completed by lunchtime.

Sunday started with about 2 hours of the glamour school events, taking us back a couple of years to when Chris and Grant were with us at Nagambie for Jessye’s gold-medal win in the schoolgirl coxed four. Rowing seems to have dropped off a little at Lauriston since then  and they weren’t represented in that event this year although their 8 placed 2nd in the B Final. Then the interstate battle commenced with the single sculls, David Crawshay pulling out another victory for Victoria, the fours and finally the eights. The Womens’ Youth Eights from all the states are put together just for this event and there are no heats, just one all or nothing 2km race so they have never raced each other before and have no idea what to expect - they just get out there and give it their best shot. It was very exciting to watch. New South Wales were in the lead by the time we could see the boats at the 1500m mark with West Australia in 2nd place, Queensland in 3rd and Victoria in 4th with South Australia and Tasmania battling it out for 5th and 6th. NSW held their lead and WA hung on for 2nd but there was a real fight on for bronze. As the boats pulled up level with where we were standing at about the 1750 mark, Queensland was still slightly ahead of Victoria and piling on the pressure with a strong finish but the Victorian girls weren’t having any of it. Both boats looked fabulous and strong all the way but the VIC girls were gaining and did indeed cross the finish line ahead to win the bronze medals. They came off the water looking pleased with their efforts and having enjoyed a great race.

After the medal ceremony they rowed around to the “backstage” side of the course and jumped into the lake to cool off. I was surprised more rowers hadn’t done that. After all the points were tallied Victoria was declared the overall winner of the Interstate Regatta and Jessye and her crew can feel some satisfaction with their contribution.