Rowing at the 2007 Australian Youth Olympic Festival

The Australian Youth Olympic Festival was held in Sydney between the 17th and 21st of January and the rowing events were contested at the Sydney International Regatta Centre in Penrith, the site of the rowing for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

Unlike most events, the rowing events offered each state the chance to compete separately against countries including the Great Britain, New Zealand and China. Although the Great Britain and New Zealand teams had recent success at the Junior and Under 23 Rowing World Championships, this format was successful as the Australian states still performed competitively with the NSW team winning the premier event, the Men's Eight.

Great Britain led the way with a total of 6 Gold Medals. The Australian state crews performed admirably with NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia sharing 14 medals between them.

A notable highlight of the regatta was the Gold medal won by the NSW Men’s Youth 8+. The atmosphere for this marquee race had the crowd in raptures as the crews powered towards the line. The NSW crew of Luke Freeman, Luke Woods, Alistair Matthews, David Neuhaus, Andrew Connolly, Mitchell Estens, Bede Clarke, Kurt Spencer and coxswain Toby Lister (listed from Bow to Stroke) held off the fast finishing Great Britain to the delight of the parochial crowd.

The competition was a terrific learning experience for all rowers who competed and also a good prequel to the [[World Junior Rowing Championships that was held in Beijing later in the 2007.

Medal Tally