New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship holder Jack Hargreaves OAM and his crewmates in the Olympic champion Men’s Four are relishing the opportunity to again face their biggest rivals, Great Britain, at the World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, Serbia next month.

All eyes will be on Australia to see if they can defend their Olympic title at Paris next year. The British won the title at Sydney back in 2000 and held it until they lost it to Hargreaves and his crew at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

But first, they have to qualify the boat in Belgrade from September 3-10. And not for the first time this season, it is the British boat that will be their most stubborn obstacle.

For the Rhett Ayliffe-coached Australian Four of Hargreaves, Alex Hill OAM, Spencer Turrin OAM and Alex Purnell OAM, the world title rendezvous is one on which they are totally focused.

While Australia are the reigning Olympic champions, they are also hungry to restore some lost authority. Australia was beaten for Gold by Great Britain in the 2022 World Rowing Championships and in this year’s World Cup II at Varese, Italy and World Cup III at Lucerne, Switzerland.

Victory for the Australian Four in Belgrade would also provide them with a terrific boost in the preparation to emulate the famed Australian ‘Oarsome Foursome’ at the Games in Paris.

The Oarsome Foursome won the Olympic Gold medal in 1992 and 1996. Great Britain then dominated the coxless four at Olympics, winning Gold in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016.

“It was good to get it back for Australia,” Hargreaves, 30, said of Australia’s Tokyo success. “The hard thing now… everyone can win once, but to win twice… we have to do that now.”

Hargreaves’ journey from the western NSW town of Nyngan, where his family still lives, to wherever in the world that rowing takes him has been full of critical junctions that could easily have seen him steered away from the sport. Luckily for him – and Australian rowing – he followed his gut instinct.

Rowing’s gain was rugby union’s loss. His 198cm height belies his history as a tight head prop in rugby, the position he played until Year 9 at Sydney’s St Joseph’s College before switching to the second row after a mid-teen burst of height.

But thanks to advice of his sister that he try rowing to keep fit for rugby in the off-season, Hargreaves, who got as far as playing in the School 2nd XV, was soon lost to rugby forever.

“I was like: ‘If I stay fit through the summer, I’ll get into a better footy team,” Hargreaves said. “It stayed like that. I wasn’t going to row after school. But I won an award, the ‘Rowers Rower’ at Joeys; so, thought I might give it a kick.”

He continued rowing at the Sydney University Boat Club; and as he explains: “It kind of snowballed into a career.

“It was a high-performing club. It still is. I was really competitive and liked that aspect. Rowing is a sport where the more you put into it, the more you get of it. I liked that aspect of it. If you just put in the work, you’ll get rewarded.”

The Australian Four’s work ethic has been second to none. This week they will finish their last training block on Lake Varese in northern Italy with other Australian Rowing Team crews before travelling to Belgrade. Their weekly regime is arduous and includes 200km-plus of rowing, weight sessions in the gym, rowing ergometer workouts and 250km of road cycling.

Hargreaves admits there are still times when the physical and mental fatigue of training can threaten to create self-doubt. But he believes they are also defining moments of a program.

Hargreaves’ approach to those inevitable situations is simple. “You just have to remind yourself that these are the times that will push you forward,” Hargreaves said.

But Hargreaves almost did not heed his own advice after missing selection for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. His trajectory into the national team began in 2013 when he first represented Australia at the World Cup in Sydney.

In that regatta he won a Bronze Medal in the Men’s Eight. He then rowed in the Pair with Nick Wheatley to win Silver Medals in the 2014 and 2015 Under 23 World Championships and qualify the boat for the 2016 Olympics.

But he would miss selection and not get his ticket to Rio. In disappointment, he almost gave up rowing altogether.

“For three weeks, it was like: ‘I am retired’,” Hargreaves said.

But no sooner had Hargreaves racked the blades, he took a telephone call from Sydney University to “come back down and help a bit”.

Before he knew it, he was rowing again and back in the national selection frame. Hargreaves rowed in the Four that won a World Championship Gold Medal in 2017 and 2018 with Turrin, Hill, and Josh Hicks, who is now in the Men’s Eight.

Hargreaves then won the Olympic Gold with Hill, Turrin and Purnell at the 2020 Games in Tokyo that were postponed to 2021 due to the Covid pandemic.

The extended five-year Olympic cycle was too long for a number of athletes. Some retired just before the Games. Hargreaves admits to being close to the brink leading up to the Olympic regatta.

“It took a lot from everyone,” he said. “Mentally, I was like ‘I’m done after Tokyo’. Then, literally, as we crossed the finish line, it was, ‘I’ve got to come back and try again.”

Winning can do that to an athlete.

So, here he is … in the same boat, with the same crewmates, preparing for another World Rowing Championships. Should they book their slot, another date with Olympic destiny is less than a year away.

Article courtesy of Rupert Guinness, Rowing Australia

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