Tassie rower happy to be back in the eight for Tokyo Games

Tassie rower Sarah Hawe primed for gold in Aussie eight at Tokyo Olympic Games

SARAH Hawe’s heart sunk when she missed selection for the women’s coxless four at the Tokyo Games but the Tasmanian rower believes the Aussie eights are well in contention for an Olympic medal, hopefully gold.

Hawe made her mark on the world stage in the four, winning two gold medals and a silver from three world championship campaigns, plus five World Cup victories as a member of Australia’s dominant women’s four.

But she missed the boat Tokyo.

Hawe, who celebrates her 34th birthday on Friday, secured the five seat in the Australian eight, which begins its campaign on Tokyo’s Sea Forest Waterway on Sunday.

The gun rower enters the Olympics determined to add to her impressive medal haul.

“It was based on results at selections in March with the four being prioritised and I did not perform as well as I would have hoped,” Hawe said.

Tasmanian rower and Tokyo Olympian Sarah Hawe competing at the national rowing titles at Lake Barrington in March 2021. Picture: Linda Higginson/Rowing Australia

“Initially, I was disappointed not to be in the four but then I put that aside and focused on working with what I had because there is still an opportunity to get an Olympic gold medal and I can work with others to make the boat go as fast as we can.”

There is a distinctive differences between the four and eight.

“In the eight, the boat itself is a lot heavier and slower to get up to speed but then a lot harder to slow down,” she said.

“When you first get in, it feels like it’s a sprint for the entire race but the more we’ve done, the more I’ve learned there is more of a rhythm to it.

“The boat feels different. It’s heavier and definitely noisier. There’s more talk in the eight, especially having the coxswain but also with all the other athletes geeing each other up rather than having just one making all the calls in a four.”

With so little international competition since Covid hit, Hawe said it was difficult to assess form in the event but was sure of one thing.

“It’s extremely competitive. Looking back at the 2019 world championships, it was Australia and New Zealand vying for the gold and New Zealand had the edge by 2.72-seconds,” she said.

“Having had no international competition since then, it’s really hard to gauge so a bit of an unknown and we’ll just trust our training.

“Normally, there are three world cup regattas each year but they are all in Europe and we’ve not been a part of any, so this year there have been hardly any women’s eight races, so that’s very different to previous Olympics.”

Meanwhile, Hobart hockey duo Eddie Ockenden and Josh Beltz get their Olympic campaigns underway at 10.30am on Saturday when the gold medal favourite Kookaburras begin their campaign against host nation Japan.