Day 6 Results Summary - Saturday, 11 March 2000

In an exciting morning of racing we have seen two more crews put their names on spots in the Australian Olympic Team. In the lightweight men's double scull experienced Olympic campaigner Bruce Hick secured his seat by winning with his partner Hamish Karrasch. They have now fulfilled selection criteria for this event by coming first and second in the single scull and now also winning the double. Karrasch and Hick are an established combination after last year winning a silver medal at the rowing World Championships. Bruce Hick partnered with Anthony Edwards (who is now a member of the selected lightweight four crew) in Atlanta winning a bronze medal.

The second crew to be nominated for selection in the Olympic team is the women's lightweight double combination of Sally Newmarch and Virginia Lee. Lee and Newmarch on Thursday came first and second in the single scull and today they easily won their double final, hence putting their names on the only two seats available for lightweight women at the Olympics.

Mens Senior A Coxless Four - Final
In a much anticipated and talked about event the UTS crew of Ben Dodwell, Bo Hanson and Geoff and James Stewart won today just narrowly beating the New Zealand representative crew who came fourth at last years World Championships.

The UTS crew won by .24 of a second. The results of this have put selectors into a quandry of not quite knowing whether to split this four up and try and strengthen it somewhat by putting the winners in the Pair on Thrusday Rob Scott and David Weightman into the four. We will have to wait and see until the next selection regatta in April to see what happens. At the next selection regatta we will also see more contenders in the equation with the return of the currently injured Drew Ginn (partner to James Tomkins) and Rob Walker (partner to Richard Wearne).

Mens Senior A Double Scull - Final
In an effort to find form Stuart Reside combined with champion men's sculler Duncan Free to narrowly take out this title. In an impressive display of courage and determination one of Australia's best rowers Peter Antonie combined with Craig Jones to provide an excellent challenge to Reside and Free. Reside and Free took out the title in a photo finish with the margin being .37 seconds between the two crews.

Reside has struggled to find form after being out for several months whilst having a knee operation. He has also been fighting off a virus this week, which has seen him performing below expectation. At the next selection regatta these four rowers will be trying to put their names on one of 7 spots (the double has yet to qualify) available in this category.

Womens Senior A Double Scull - Final
Again Bronwyn Roye stamped her authority all over women's sculling, combining with her doubles partner of four years, Marina Hatzakis to hold off a late challenge from the combination of Georgina Douglas and Monique Heinke. Earlier in the week Bronwyn took out the women's single scull title for the second year running.

She has again proven today that she is the leading women's sculler. Roye and Hatzakis will be back again in April to prove to selectors that their combination should be kept together.

Men's Senior A Lightweight Double Scull - Final
As mentioned previously this event was dominated by Bruce Hick and Hamish Karrasch. They are now the third Australian crew to be selected after the women's pair and the men's lightweight four, Shane Broad and Karl Parker were unable to quite meet the challenge with Hick and Karrasch winning with clear water.

Hick and Karrasch will now be working towards their goal of an Olympic final, culminating in an Olympic gold medal!

Women's Senior A Lightweight Double Scull - Final
The fourth crew to be selected at this regatta Sally Newmarch and Virginia Lee have now secured their seats in the team and will now be able to focus on preparing for the Olympics in September. A good performance was put in by fellow training partners Zita Van De Walle and Catriona Roach and they came in second by just over a boat length.

Now that we have the Senior A Olympic Selection races completed with some very successful outcomes the Zurich 2000 Australian Rowing Championships focuses on mostly school events. Tomorrow we will see the Interstate challenge of the Kings Cup and the finals of the schoolboy and schoolgirl eights.

See you tomorrow

Michael Wilson and Heidi Little