Pymble Ladies College of New South Wales during a sunrise training at Iron Cove, Sydney Harbour, Australia.
“We’re looking at going from 36% of the team being female to 50%. If we look back to our pathways, this is a huge opportunity that we are just failing to tap into.”
CHRIS O’BRIEN
O’Brien will oversee at Rio will be 40% women, 60% men. This is a fair shift from the 36-64 divide at London, and by Tokyo in 2020 the split is expected to reach parity. “For us if we’re looking at going from 36% of the team being female to 50%, there is a huge opportunity in terms of female participation, and if we look back to our pathways – specifically our school structure – this is a huge opportunity that we are just failing to tap into. Schoolgirls rowing is huge, just huge, and we’re not utilising this properly.” With proportional parity a looming
requirement, it is perhaps not surprising O’Brien is keen to tap in to schoolgirls rowing, which in his home state of Victoria is a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut: the Schoolgirls Head of the River is said to be the biggest single-sex regatta in the southern hemisphere, and is one of few school events nationally that is open to all schools.
The success of Victorian women at
consecutive Queens Cup Interstate Regattas could perhaps reflect the power of the institution, but it is not replicated across the nation. Young women appear to abandon the sport between secondary school and adulthood. “Our average age for a medal is something like 27 or 28, so we have to keep our athletes rowing for a longer period. We have to do more work in our talent pathways to make sure more and more kids who come through our school and club system convert through to our national team structure. “We have to adapt to a changing
environment and it’s certainly a very competitive sporting landscape. We need to make sure we’re doing a better job of what we do, and that the product or the package that we’re presenting is something that is attractive to people.” For an elite coach, O’Brien’s
background as a “club hack” gives him
a unique perspective. He holds strong views about athlete pathways and values the contribution clubs make to the rowing community. He argues rowing clubs need an
overhaul if they’re going to compete effectively with other sports. “We are still courting traditional club
structures, but really if they’re going to be viable, our clubs have to shift from clubs to being businesses. Let’s face it, people don’t baulk at paying for tennis or a golf lesson, but here we say ‘here’s your membership to a rowing club’, where members have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth equipment, and a clubhouse to be part of, and people say things like “oh are you kidding?’” “The challenge is that we have our
clubs saying to new members ‘this is how we operate’ and expecting them to sign up to some archaic rate structure for a year. Why not sign up for a season – or a set number of events – rather than a
ROW360 // Issue 001 79
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116