Rowing Australia finally embraces female crews

Rowing Australia has a chequered history in its treatment of female rowers but has commited to gender equality.

Olympic rower Fiona Albert at the Yarra river in Melbourne this week. Picture: David Geraghty

In gold medallist Kim Brennan’s lifetime, Australia has sent a rowing team to the Olympic Games that did not include a single woman. That was in Seoul in 1988, less than 30 years ago.

Even five years ago, a women’s eight that was nicknamed the “Motley Crew’’ had to fight the ­national federation for the right to compete at the 2012 Games. They defied the doubters and went on to reach the Olympic final.

Rowing Australia has a chequered history in its treatment of ­female rowers but in the last year it has made a full commitment to gender equality.

In the wake of the Rio Olympics, where Brennan starred, RA revamped its high performance program and introduced national training centres for men (Can­berra) and women (Penrith), centralised programs that would provide equal resources to the top male and female athletes.

Just six months later, the sport is seeing the benefit of that approach. At the Australian team’s first World Cup hitout in Poland last weekend, female crews won four of the national team’s five medals.

Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee was pressing on the International Rowing Federation to include equal numbers of events for men and women in the program for Tokyo in 2020.

Earlier this month the IOC ­announced that the women’s four would replace the men’s lightweight four in Tokyo, achieving its desired equality outcome.

Coincidentally, the Australian women’s four won the gold medal in Poland.

Brennan says even during her career she has seen a dramatic change in the attitude to women in her sport.

“I think there’s been a big shift in mindset, in that people have ­realised that women’s rowing is really growing in participation — at school level there are more girls than boys,’’ Brennan said. “There have been people arguing that the depth wasn’t there for the women’s four, but then they came out and won at the World Cup.’’

The move to a centralised high performance system has been controversial in Australian rowing. Several senior Olympians have opposed it publicly, arguing that it will force them to uproot their lives and families to continue competing. But Brennan said it was already proving its worth with the young rowers who have joined the women’s NTC this year.

“They had their first hitout on Sunday and the results are really promising, and when you talk to the athletes in the training centres they are enjoying it,’’ she said.

“I think the most exciting thing about it is that they are all young and this is the next generation coming through. I think a lot of people will be surprised at how quickly they have got results.’’

One of those who has grasped her opportunity is 29-year-old Sarah Hawe, a Hobart veterinarian, who was a member of the winning four in Poland.

She’s not a youngster but she is a newcomer to the national team. She last represented Australia as a junior in 2005 but found her ­degree was too time-consuming to combine with rowing, so she ­prioritised her veterinary career through her early 20s. She narrowly missed Olympic selection last year as a sculler, before switching to sweep rowing and she has finally broken through to the national team this year.

Hawe moved to the NTC in March, where the relocated rowers are receiving a $500 a week allowance to cover living ­expenses, courtesy of sponsor Gina Rinehart.

The early success of the four, under new head coach John Keogh, will certainly build belief in the new system.

“We really had no expectations, with the four just being named as an Olympic event,’’ Hawe said. “We went into it blind but came away with a win. It definitely gives us a confidence boost to know we are in the mix.’’

Rio Olympian Fiona Albert joined the NTC in January but was forced to drop out of this year’s ­national team in March, when an ongoing back injury was diagnosed as a herniated disc and ­required surgery.

At 26, she is thrilled to see the change of attitude to women in her sport.

“I think the success of the women’s Olympic boats in London was the catalyst for the decision to look after the women better,’’ she said. “It’s still been a bit of an uphill battle in the last four years, but in the last 12 months there’s been a real change and now we are seeing the benefit. When you commit to a women’s program you get a result.’’

Albert said there had been “teething issues’’ with setting up the program, but she is confident these will be addressed in the short term.

“I think it’s going to be a good place to get the best out of yourself,’’ she said. “It’s been polarising. I am in the fortunate position of having just finished my law degree, so I can relocate my life, but that’s not possible for everyone.

“It’s been a sudden change to the expectation that if you want to be on the national team you have to move to these places.’’

She’s hopeful that the women’s program will eventually include a women’s eight, which will create more opportunities for female rowers.

“It’s a long game to become an Olympic rower and if we are telling girls it will be near-impossible to make it, we will lose them. But if it seems a more realistic possibility because there are seats in a pair, a four and an eight, then so many more will keep going.’’

Despite the recent advances, Albert believes there is “still a fair way to go to gender equality’’.

“There are entrenched beliefs, as there are in other sports,’’ she said. “Gender equality only comes when there is an equal allocation of resources and value and belief.’’

Brennan suspects it is the ­economic rather than the moral argument that has pushed the ­current move towards equality for women in many of Australia’s most prominent sports.

“A lot of people think that organisations are making decisions around gender equality out of social conscience or because it’s the right thing to do but the bottom line is that they have discovered that it’s the commercially viable thing to do,’’ she said.

“It creates more participants, more spectators and it’s a better representation of society.’’

Rowing Australia’s deputy chair Flavia Gobbo, who joined what was then an all-male board in 2012, is intimately aware of the need to provide female rowers with pathways to the top or risk losing them from the sport.

Her own daughter, Francesca Paterson, was an aspiring London Olympian, but when the national association decided against supporting the women’s eight, she could no longer see a way forward and opted for medical school ­instead.

“She had very mixed feelings when the eight made it to London,’’ Gobbo said. “She felt as if events had conspired against her.’’

Gobbo now heads up RA’s high performance commission. She acknowledges that the introduction of the NTC system has been controversial but argues that it was necessary to create a more efficient and equitable system.

“It was great to see the women perform so strongly in the World Cup when it’s very early days and they are making do with temporary facilities,’’ she said.

“If those are the results we can get in these circumstances, we’re well on our way to meeting our target of being No. 1 in the world.’’

The NTC’s Penrith boatshed is due for completion next month, with the offices expected to open in September, in time for the next domestic season.