This year's Paris Olympic Games saw the worst performance from Australia's rowing team, The Rowsellas in 36 years. So a new initiative has been launched to make the sport accessible to more kids, regardless of their background.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Georgie Rowe is one of the only members of the current Rowing Australia program who went
00:07to a public high school.
00:09Unlike most elite private schools, Georgie's school didn't offer a rowing program.
00:14So it was a chance encounter as a 24-year-old that launched the now two-time Olympian's
00:19career.
00:20If someone came up to me when I was at school and said, hey, you're really tall, you're
00:23really strong, we would love to get you in a boat, I probably would have done it.
00:27But those opportunities aren't there for the public school kids.
00:31This year's Paris Olympic Games saw the worst performance from an Australian rowing team
00:35since 1988, winning just one bronze medal.
00:38The program is currently undergoing its regular post-Games review, with a bigger emphasis
00:43on what went wrong and identifying ways to improve, like making the sport more accessible.
00:47We've got a lot of things in place and we're tweaking a few things and working with our
00:51partners and stakeholders around the states.
00:54We always want to do better.
00:56Long-term rowers John and Jeanette Gasson believe access to the sport has always been
01:00an issue.
01:01So, they founded and built Canberra's Red Shed, which has several programs, including
01:05rowing for children, no matter their background.
01:08In our last school holiday program, we had kids from 25 different public schools attend
01:14the programs, which we're really excited about.
01:16Keeping those shoulders in front of the hips.
01:19While the facility is only in its infancy, the Gassons want programs like this to bolster
01:23the depth of Australia's rowing talent.
01:26It's pretty ambitious, but somehow we want eight graduates to be in the 2032 Olympics.
01:30That's one of our goals and we're working on that.
01:33We report on that and we'll continue to do that.
01:36For Wendy Stace-Winkels, it's an opportunity she wouldn't otherwise have had.
01:40Because it's mostly a lot of private schools in the competitive, so it's great to have
01:46more public school kids doing it.
01:48In a program Georgie could only dream of when she was at school.
01:51There's so many more kids that would be so great at rowing, but if they don't have the
01:55access to it, you'll never find them.
01:58Pulling towards a better future for Australian rowing.