Coastal rowing Olympic surge<\/a><\/p>\nThough she only tried the sport for the first time this year, the 18-year-old nursing student was one of several Australians taking home gold after competing in coastal rowing in Barbados, ahead of the sport’s 2028 Olympic debut.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I was doing flat water up until about April. My friends were trying coastal rowing one morning, and were like, ‘Why don’t you come?'” Wightman said.<\/p>\n
\u200b”The first trials for the Australian team were that weekend, so I went, had a go, and then made the team halfway through the year.”<\/p>\n
A few months later, Wightman was one of five Australians competing in the knockout-style world championships in T\u00fcrkiye.<\/p>\n
\u200bAfter beating the Netherlands in the quarter-finals but losing to eventual champions Spain in the semis, the Australians were pitted against the home team in a bid for bronze.<\/p>\n
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One rower from each crew sprinted across the sand and jumped in their boat, joining the other four before racing out to a yellow buoy.<\/p>\n
Both teams then rounded the buoy, racing back to shore at about 20km\/h, before another rower jumped out and sprinted to the finish line.<\/p>\n
\u200b”There’s so much unknown, but that makes it more exciting being out in the waves,” Wightman said.<\/p>\n
\u200b”You never actually know what to expect. You can plan for your perfect race, but things are bound to happen if you get hit by a wave, eat a buoy, or the wind’s really bad.”<\/p>\n
Team cox Ryder Taylor knew the competition didn’t expect the Australians to perform as well as they did because they rarely compete compared with their European counterparts.<\/p>\n
\u200b”We weren’t really expected to medal, but as a crew we all knew we could do it. We had that quiet confidence,” Taylor told AAP.<\/p>\n
The athletes now turn their attention towards preparing for the Los Angeles Olympics, where coastal rowing beach sprints will make their Games debut.<\/p>\n
\u200bAlthough the four-person format won’t feature, mixed doubles sculls and singles will.<\/p>\n
“LA is definitely on everyone’s mind, especially in coastal rowing,” Taylor said.<\/p>\n
“The world championships were really important for us because it was the first senior medal for Australia, and it puts us on the radar for LA.<\/p>\n
“We’re going to be strong. We’re going to compete there very well.”<\/p>\n
AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophia Wightman only began coastal rowing in April after her friends tempted her to pick up the oars.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,118057,203334,63817,203335,17330,203336,588,85,25247],"class_list":["post-377193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bronze-medal","tag-coastal-beach-sprints","tag-los-angeles-olympics","tag-mixed-coxed-quad","tag-rowing","tag-sophia-wightman","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-world-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}