Gina Rinehart mines for rowing gold at Tokyo

Gone are the days where Australian rowers had to work part-time in cafes and bars to help pay their way in the sport.

Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart with Australian rower Jessica Morrison, who won the Gina Leadership award in 2019

Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart’s $1.4 million annual investment in the top 50 Australian rowers has proven “a game changer” for the sport as it searches for its next Olympic heroes.

Australia’s richest person directly funds a weekly wage of $525 each to the best 25 women and 25 men rowers, allowing them to train full-time at the sport’s two training bases in Canberra and Penrith.

Rinehart also played a key role in helping to fund the Hancock Prospecting Women’s National Training Centre – which opened in Penrith in 2017 – when Rowing Australia made a decision to centralise the men’s and women’s programs after the 2016 Rio Olympics.

While Rowing Australia chief executive Ian Robson would not discuss the size of Rinehart’s financial contribution, he said her support had changed the sport’s dynamics and potentially its future success.

“We would never comment on the specifics of numbers as we don’t believe it is appropriate, but Mrs Rinehart’s generosity is there for all to see,” Robson said. “What she has committed to our sport has been, at its simplest and most profound, game changing.

“The reality is as much as we are appreciative of the support we get from other sources, including from Sport Australia, and ultimately the Federal Government, we couldn’t do it just on that funding alone.

“The ambition to have a standalone centre for women (at Penrith), the ambition to have 50 athletes training full-time, and meeting the standards of our main competitors, whether that be the Kiwis, the Brits, the Germans, the Italians or the Americans … we wouldn’t be able to do what we are doing without Mrs Rinehart’s philanthropy and generosity. We couldn’t be more grateful for what she is doing for our sport and for our athletes.”

Rinehart – who last week was estimated to be worth $36.28 billion according to The Australian’s Richest 250 list – gained a passion for rowing at the 2016 Rio Olympics when she witnessed Kim Brennan (nee Crow) win gold in the single sculls.

She also contributes annually to a handful of other sports, and has committed to an ongoing funding program for rowing until the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The rowers also receive support via the AIS/AOC funding and are eligible for other incentive grants, some of which are aligned to results.

Olympian Jessica Morrison, who won the 2019 Gina Rinehart Leadership award, said the extraordinary financial contribution from the sport’s patron had resulted in significant improvement in the program as well as in the athletes’ physical and mental preparations.

She is confident it will also bring about better results at the Tokyo Olympics.

“Mrs Rinehart’s investment in rowing came after the 2016 Olympics and the sport has just skyrocketed in terms of performance ever since,” Morrison said. “I am so excited for these Games. When you think back to how the sport operated pre-2016, it was a decentralised system and we didn’t have the support of Mrs Rinehart.

“We all trained in our home states and with our home clubs, and we all had different coaches. That was quite challenging.

“I’m really excited to see what we can achieve this year, to demonstrate what the (training) centres have brought to the sport at a higher performance level, with the ability to train together for four years and the phenomenal resources we have.”