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| Full name | Christian Ahrens | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | July 24, 1976 (age 48) Iowa City, Iowa, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Christian Ahrens (born July 24, 1976) is an American former rower. [1] He is a dual Olympian, an Olympic gold medal winner, and a four-time world champion.
Ahrens was born in Iowa City, Iowa, on July 24, 1976, to Gary and Patricia Ahrens. His father, Gary, had rowed in high school and at Milwaukee Rowing Club. When Christian was only six years old, his father began teaching him how to row in a flat-bottom boat tied to a clothesline on the Milwaukee River. He began rowing more seriously his freshman year of high school, again coached by his father, after deciding that he "wasn't going to go anywhere in swimming". [2]
Ahrens is a 1998 graduate of Princeton University who rowed for the Princeton Tigers and the United States national team. He was honored by The Daily Princetonian as the 18th most successful athlete in the school's history. [3]
Ahrens stroked the gold medal winning United States men's eight at the 1997, 1998, and 1999 world championships, and was in the six seat for their fifth place 2000 Sydney Olympic boat. Ahrens came out of retirement in 2004 to join the US Olympic squad in the three seat of the gold medal winning boat. This boat was notable not only for being the first US eight to win Olympic gold since 1964, but it also set a new course and world record of 5:19.85. [4] That world best time stood until a Canadian eight took half a second off it in 2012.
Ahrens retired from international rowing immediately upon crossing the finish line at the 2004 Olympics. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters.
James Bruce Tomkins is an Australian rower, seven-time World Champion and a three-time Olympic gold medalist. He is Australia's most awarded oarsman, having made appearances at six Olympic games ; eleven World Championships ; four Rowing World Cups and eighteen state representative King's Cup appearances – the Australian blue riband men's VIII event,. Tomkins is one of only five Australian athletes and four rowers worldwide to compete at six Olympics. From 1990 to 1998 he was the stroke of Australia's prominent world class crew – the coxless four known as the Oarsome Foursome.
Kieran Martin West is a retired English rower and Olympic champion who represented Great Britain.
Derek Nesbitt-Porter is a gold medal-winning Olympic rower from Canada.
Christopher Donald Liwski is a Canadian American rower, a six-time U.S. National Team member, a double world championship medal winner, and a two-time member of the United States Olympic Rowing Team.
Thomas James MBE is a British rower, twice Olympic champion and victorious Cambridge Blue. In a British coxless four in 2012 he set a world's best time which still stood as of 2021.
Conrad Christian Robertson is a former New Zealand rower who won an Olympic Gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Chris Morgan is an Australian former representative rower. He was a national champion, two-time world champion, three time Olympian and Olympic medal winner from Adelaide, South Australia. He won world championships in both sculls and in sweep-oared boat classes.
Malcolm Howard is a Canadian rower. He was born in Victoria, British Columbia and graduated from Brentwood College School in 2001. While at Brentwood he joined Canada's junior national team.
Caryn Davies is an American rower. She is the winner of the 2023 Thomas Keller Medal, the most prestigious international award in the sport of rowing, and the only American to have ever won this award. She won gold medals as the stroke seat of the U.S. women's eight at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics. In April 2015 Davies stroked Oxford University to victory in the first ever women's Oxford/Cambridge boat race held on the same stretch of the river Thames in London where the men's Oxford/Cambridge race has been held since 1829. She was the most highly decorated Olympian to take part in either [men's or women's] race. In 2012 Davies was ranked number 4 in the world by the International Rowing Federation. At the 2004 Olympic Games she won a silver medal in the women's eight. Davies has won more Olympic medals than any other U.S. oarswoman. The 2008 U.S. women's eight, of which she was a part, was named FISA crew of the year. Davies is from Ithaca, New York, where she graduated from Ithaca High School, and rowed with the Cascadilla Boat Club. Davies was on the Radcliffe College (Harvard) Crew Team and was a member on Radcliffe's 2003 NCAA champion Varsity 8, and overall team champion. In 2013, she was a visiting student at Pembroke College, Oxford, where she stroked the college men's eight to a victory in both Torpids and the Oxford University Summer Eights races. In 2013–14 Davies took up Polynesian outrigger canoeing in Hawaii, winning the State novice championship and placing 4th in the long-distance race na-wahine-o-ke-kai with her team from the Outrigger Canoe Club. In 2013, she was inducted into the New York Athletic Club Hall of Fame and in 2022 into the Harvard University Athletics Hall of Fame.
Walter Neville Howell OAM is an Australian former representative and Olympic medal winning rower. He competed at two Olympic Games, racing at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics in the men's eight and at the 1960 Rome Olympics in the Men's coxed pair. He won a gold medal at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Games in the Men's eight and represented in the Australian eight at the inaugural 1962 World Rowing Championships.
Richard Schmidt is a German former representative sweep-oar rower. He is a six time world champion, a four time Olympian, an Olympic gold & silver medallist and held a seat in the German senior men's eight — the Deutschlandachter — constantly from 2009 to 2021. He rowed at seven when the Deutschlandachter at the 2017 World Rowing Cup II set a world's best time of 5.18.68, which was still the standing world mark as of 2023.
Daniel Noonan is an Australian former representative rower. He was a national champion, a world champion, a dual Olympian and an Olympic medal winner.
Simon Burgess is an Australian national champion, two-time World Champion, three-time Olympian and dual Olympic silver medal-winning lightweight rower. He represented Australia ten times at World Rowing Championships between 1990 and 2002. He won world and national championships in both sculls and in sweep-oared boat classes during an eighteen-year elite level career.
Constantine Michael Louloudis is a Greek-British rower. He is an Olympic medal winner, two-time world champion and four-time Boat Race winner.
Martino Goretti is an Italian representative lightweight rower, a current (2019) world champion and a dual Olympian. He has represented at senior World Rowing Championships and World Rowing Cups consistently from 2005 to 2019. He is a four time world champion at the senior level who won three titles in Italian lightweight eights from 2005 to 2009 and then in 2019 won the lightweight single scull world title. He had previously won underage world championships as a junior and an U23.
Sydney University Boat Club is the rowing club in Sydney, Australia with the oldest charter having been formed in 1860 by the founders of the University of Sydney. It has had a boatshed presence in various locations on Sydney Harbour since 1886, excepting between 1941 and 1966. A varsity and recreational club during most of its history, the Boat Club has since the 1990s had a focus on its high performance and elite rowing programs. Supported by the University's Sports Union the Club has developed an increasing number of Olympic representative oarsmen and women in the new millennium with club members rowing in twenty-two seats in those Australian Olympic crews who represented between Athens 2004 and Tokyo 2021.
Kristine O'Brien is an American rower. In 2015 O'Brien, Adrienne Martelli, Grace Latz and Grace Luczak took the gold medal in the coxless four at the 2015 World Rowing Championships.
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The 1972 New Zealand eight was a team of Olympic gold medallists in rowing from New Zealand, having previously won the 1971 European Rowing Championships. At the time, the eight was regarded as the blue ribbon class of rowing, and the sport still had amateur-status in New Zealand, unlike many other nations competing in rowing. After a disappointing Olympic performance at the 1968 Summer Olympics by the New Zealand eight, national selectors Rusty Robertson, Don Rowlands, and Fred Strachan were tasked with assembling a new crew. Robertson was also the team's coach. The next time a New Zealand eight competed was at the 1970 World Rowing Championships, where they came third. The team was once again significantly changed for the next rowing season, with the 1971 edition of the European Rowing Championships and other international regattas beforehand seen as the ultimate test for the 1972 Summer Olympics. The team put up an impressive performance, beat the highly favoured East German eight, and became European champion; at the time the win was regarded as holding world championship status. No further changes were made to the team, not even their seating position, for the 1972 season. Despite a shoe-string budget, financial constraints, and all rowers working part-time, the 1971 success was repeated and the team won Olympic gold in Munich. The president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Avery Brundage, was a zealous advocate of amateurism; he was so impressed by the New Zealand performance that he insisted on handing out the gold medals himself. During the medal ceremony, much to almost everybody's surprise, "God Defend New Zealand" was played instead of the national anthem, "God Save the Queen". It was the impetus for a campaign to make "God Defend New Zealand" the New Zealand anthem, and in 1977 it was gazetted as having equal status to the traditional anthem.
Timothy Masters is an Australian rower. He is a national champion, a representative and silver medallist at World Championships, and a three-time silver medallist at World Rowing U23 Championships. He rowed in the Australian men's eight at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
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