Alexander Hill’s journey from the Riverland to Olympic gold – and becoming one of the world’s best

On Wednesday in Tokyo, Alexander Hill landed a gold medal and an Olympic record. His family, watching from Loxton, share the unusual journey to get there.

With his quiet determination, long arms and immense lung capacity, Alexander Hill is widely regarded as one of the best rowers in the world.

On Wednesday, he added the missing piece to his crammed trophy cabinet, an Olympic gold medal, as part of the men’s coxless four that won Australia’s first gold in the event in 25 years.

But back in his high school days, Hill came breathtakingly close to giving it all away.

It was 2008 when the Loxton teenager left his parents’ citrus and grape-growing property in the Riverland to become a year 10 boarder at Prince Alfred College down in the city.

He’d spent a childhood on his beloved River Murray but he wasn’t into rowing. He’d tried everything else though: shot put, discus, Aussie rules – he even made SA state representative basketball teams.

Until 2008 when he popped into the school gym, jumped on a rowing machine and caught the eye of onlookers.

His mother Michelle explains: “They saw him training on an ergo one day and said to him, ‘Hey, mate, you’re coming on the rowing team’.”

Alexander Purnell, Spencer Turrin, Jack Hargreaves and Alexander Hill win Gold in the final of the Mens Four. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Trouble was, he didn’t fall in love with the sport and he gave it away after his first season.

But by the end of year 11 Hill had again caught someone’s eye. This time it was of the college’s new rowing coach Andrew Randell who convinced him to return.

Hill’s proud brother-in-law, Jarrad Schar ponders whether Hill would have become such a successful rower had it not been for the “incredibly charismatic” Randell convincing him back into the sport.

“Randell was once able to say to me that he thought Alex was a once-in-lifetime athlete,” Schar says.

By the end of year 12 in 2010, Hill had won a school honours excellence award for rowing and his future was made even clearer when he made the junior Australian team.

Michelle says it was no surprise her son flourished.

“He has always had that desire to do really well and he’s worked really, really hard,” she says.

“When he played footy, he may not have been the quickest but he would never, ever give up; he was always the one who would keep going. He has always wanted to achieve.”

Now aged 28, he lives in Canberra where the Australian rowing team trains at the Reinhold Batschi National Training Centre.

Alexander Hill, on right, with his teammates Alexander Purnell, Spencer Turrin and Jack Hargreaves. Picture: Alex Coppel

The life of an elite athlete is filled with sacrifices. Among Hill’s is that he spends so much time away from family and is typically absent for the milestone birthdays, seeing his family for a week in total every year.

“I don’t think I have spent a birthday with Alexander for the last 11 years,” Michelle says.

“And now that I’ve thought of that, it’s going to make me cry, but I haven’t and they are some of the sacrifices that you make as a family.

“There are sacrifices but then they can be rewarded, and he was rewarded today.”

Schar, who is married to Hill’s older sister Chelsea, says other sacrifices are that when he returns home to Loxton during his short Christmas break, he’ll bring a rowing machine and will pump out back-to-back half-hour ergos before the family can open their Christmas presents.

He no longer waterskis, to avoid injury.

Hill and his fellow crewmates Jack Hargreaves, Alexander Purnell and Spencer Turrin – now dubbed the new Oarsome Foursome – won their Tokyo gold in blistering style, setting an Olympic record, after getting off to a fast start.

By 500m the Aussies had clear water and a 13-second lead but by the last 50m a fast-finishing Romania almost snatched victory, finishing just 0.37 seconds behind, with Italy third.

Watching back in Adelaide was good friend and fellow Olympic rower James McRae, who had a group message chat going with others in the local rowing community as the race unfolded.

“Hilly’s a bit of diesel engine, he consistently puts out that good power, so we all thought they probably needed a length lead with 500m to go and they should be able to hold off everyone,” he says.

“They just did enough in the end.”

Alexander Hill's family and friends at the Loxton Sports club. Picture : Riverland Commercial Photography

McRae and Hill both grew up on the River Murray – McRae at Murray Bridge and Hill in Loxton.

McRae describes his friend as “one of those guys that’s just really easy to get along with”.

“He just goes about his business and doesn’t let anything change what he’s doing, so he’ll be in a very high-pressure situation and he won’t let it faze him,” he said.

“The last 18 months have been pretty tough for everyone and for someone to train through a global pandemic knowing that the Olympics might not go ahead to get ready for the race today was awesome.”

“Hilly” as his mates call him, made his Olympic debut in the same event at Rio in 2016, winning silver. He is the only remaining member from that 2016 crew, which also means he has a prominent leadership role among the crew.

Parents Peter and Michelle Hill. Picture: Riverland Commercial Photography

Michelle, husband Peter and daughters Chelsea and Victoria, were all together at Loxton North Sports Club to watch the race – thankfully the event coincided with the end of SA’s lockdown and his sisters were able to travel from Adelaide.

Michelle describes watching her son’s boat cross the finish line to take gold as like “something out of this world”.

“You know all the hard work they’ve put into it and to watch them get over that line is just an amazing feeling of pride and emotion,” she says.

“The hard part was listening to the national anthem. It’s every athlete’s dream and for a parent of an athlete at that level to be able to stand there and listen to the national anthem and that was certainly a tear-jerker.”

Both McRae and Schar say Hill has a perfect combination of features that makes him such a good rower.

“You tend to get two different flavours of rowers,” McRae explains, “you get the guys who train and the guys who like to race and Hilly is a real trainer.

“He’s got a very good lung capacity on him and once he gets out in front it’s unlikely you’re going to catch him.”

Schar, a former Australian junior rowing coach now head of sport at Scotch College, agrees: “There’s only a few ways of making a rowing boat go faster: you can row longer, you can pull harder, you can rate higher or you can do it technically more efficiently and his lung capacity – his VO2 – is exceptional, and also the length of which he can row because of his long arms and legs and his technical side of things makes him just perfect.

“Which is why in my biased opinion he is the best rower in the world.”

Prince Alfred College headmaster Bradley Fenner says Hill’s former school is immensely proud.

Fenner wasn’t at the school when Hill attended but he said the teachers who were recall a “very nice, very humble, very respectful student” who was also a focused, fierce competitor and was rewarded with the school’s highest Honours award in year 12 for excellence in rowing. On Wednesday, Hill became the school’s first gold medallist.

“We’ve been around for a long time and we’ve had many boys go on to achieve great success in various sports, but he is our first Olympic gold medallist,” Fenner says.

Schar says the gold is the culmination of years of dedication.

“It’s really good when good things happen to good people and he really deserves it.”