Paris 2024: Review launched after 36-year Olympic worst for Australian rowing team

Following Australia’s worst Olympic results in 36 years, with only one medal claimed, Rowing Australia has ordered an independent review into its declining performance.

Even before their worst Olympics in 36 years had finished, Rowing Australia had ordered a review into their declining performance.

After all three boats in finals on the last day of the regatta missed the podium, the Rowsellas ended a disappointing Olympic regatta with a single bronze medal from nine crews, their worst haul at a Games since they failed to win a medal in Seoul in 1988.

Patron Gina Rinehart has committed to backing the rowing team for the next four years.

But as well as the millions she tips into the sport, she has declared that great coaching is essential for great results, using the colourful swimming coach Dean Boxall as an example.

Gina Rinehart (l) has made it clear she wants to see the best coaching Australia’s Olympians. Picture: Adam Head

“The money is certainly helpful but it needs to be teamed with great coaching as well,” Rinehart said after watching three Aussie crews in action at the Vaires-sur-Marne course.

“You’ve seen it at the swimming, with all these fabulous swimmers winning medals - many of them are with (coach) Dean Boxall.

“As Dean says, we are a partnership because I do my funding so the swimmers can dedicate themselves to the training and competitions with him.

“So that is a partnership that has really worked, and he has done a fabulous job with the coaching.”

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Women’s pair Jess Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre, the duo named the “priority” women’s boat by Rowing Australia, came away with the only medal of the meet, although single sculler Tara Rigney was desperately unlucky not to come away with a medal, just pipped on the line after rowing herself to a standstill.

The women’s eight also finished just off the podium, with their fast-finishing fourth the best ever result for the boat at an Olympics.

It’s the men’s program that is most likely to come under the microscope though after late changes to crews and seat positions that seemingly gave the combinations little time to gel.

RA performance director Paul Thompson defended those decisions, noting Australia had not won a single world title in the three years between the Tokyo Games and Paris.

Annabelle McIntyre and Jess Morrison were Australia’s only rowing medallists of the game. Picture: AFP

But he said every result and high performance decision would be scrutinised as part of an external review that had already started, although he could not fault the effort or dedication of the athletes.

“We can be really proud of some of the results,” Thompson said.

“The athletes have given their all. There’s definitely the effort, the work and the dedication that’s gone into that.

“Have they achieved their goals? That’s a piece that we need to go back and review and we’ll go through a process and look at that.”

The men’s sweep crews will come under particular scrutiny after the late decision to shift three members of the gold medal-winning Tokyo crew into the eight in a bid to capture that title for the first time.

Tara Rigney was pipped at the line for a medal. Picture: Getty Images

“We shouldn’t forget that we came fifth in the four last year at the World Championships (with the Tokyo crew in the boat),” Thompson said.

“What we haven’t done this Olympiad is have a world champion crew coming in and punching at that level.

“We’ve had lots of good medallists and we haven’t been converting at that top level.

“We’ll have to review the strategy that we went through, the training program, the whole bit, that’s obviously clear.”

Thompson said the review would be conducted by an independent consulting company to ensure transparency.

“We’ve already started … we’ve been looking at the Olympiad so far, they cycle, and then we do specifically the performances here,” he said.

“All that information is held by a third party and we’re actually getting machine learning in to be able to really dig in deep and get the theme, so I’m quite confident that we are having a proper independent review.”

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Originally published as Paris 2024: Review launched after 36-year Olympic worst for Australian rowing team