Australian Olympic Youth Festival 2002

Rowing at Youth Festival Concluded

Racing in the Australian Youth Olympic Festival has concluded 2003. Conditions on the final day were well suited for racing. John Coates when talking about the festival commented, "we are in good shape come Beijing from what we saw today". He also confirmed that this event will be run again in two years.

Photo: New Zealand's Women Cox - Abbie Milner gets the traditional winner's dunking!

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by Michael Wilson

Results of Racing:

Results Day 1 - Thursday January 9th, 2003

Results Day 2 - Saturday January 11th, 2003

About the Festival

The Australian Youth Olympic Festival is a multi-sport event for young Olympic aspirants between the ages of 14-19 yrs. From 8-12 January 2003, the Australian Youth Olympic Festival will provide the highest level of competition to 1400 elite junior athletes in 14 summer Olympic sports. An initiative of the Australian Olympic Committee, the Australian Youth Olympic Festival is conducted in cooperation with the National Sporting Federations and will feature the best young male and female athletes from Australia, Oceania, East Asia and in some sports the world.

About the Rowing

The rowing is scheduled for two days Thursday 9th January and Saturday 11th January. The Rowing Regatta will be held at the Sydney International Regatta Centre at Penrith, the same course with the same facilities as used during the Sydney Olympics. Rowers, who will all be Under 20 come from all Australian States and as well a large contingent from New Zealand will race over two kilometres in all classes of boats in both lightweight and open weight categories. The Festival has attracted some of the highly successful Australian Junior Team from the 2002 world Championships. Queensland will be represented by Gold Coast Sculler Eugene Arendsen (pictured) who won a silver medal at the 2002 World Championships in the single scull. NSW has members of the Gold Medal Coxed Four from the World Championships. The festival is staged as an Olympic Games would be held. An opening ceremony will take place on Wednesday 8th January. All the rowers will stay together in an Athletes Village. As well as the rowing all athletes are required to partake in education programs on such topics as anti doping, goal setting and a range of other topics.

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