Rowing at the 1950 British Empire Games

Rowing at the 1950 British Empire Games
Venue	Lake Karapiro
Location	Karapiro, New Zealand
Dates	4 – 11 February 1950
←  1938 1954  →

Rowing at the 1950 British Empire Games was the third appearance of Rowing at the Commonwealth Games.

Competition featured five events being held at Lake Karapiro, ^[1] 160 kilometres (99 mi) south of Auckland. Three special trains took 1500 people to Cambridge on 7 February 1950. ^[2]

Australia topped the rowing medal table with four gold medals. ^{[3] [4]}

Lake Karapiro

Medal table

  *   Host nation (New Zealand)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Australia  (AUS)	4	1	0	5
2	New Zealand  (NZL)*	1	3	0	4
3	England  (ENG)	0	1	2	3
4	South Africa  (RSA)	0	0	1	1
Totals (4 entries)		5	5	3	13

Medal winners

The double sculls competition was an invitation event and originally no medals were awarded but they are counted in the medal table today.

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Single sculls	Australia	England	South Africa
Double sculls	Australia	New Zealand	England
Coxless pair	Australia	New Zealand	none
Coxed four	New Zealand	Australia	none
Eights	Australia	New Zealand	England

Results

The New Zealand rowing team; from right: E Smith, B Culpan, J W James, W Tinnick, D Simonson, E Johnson, W Carroll, J O'Brien

1950 British Empire Games rowing Ken Tinegate (left) and Jack Brown (right)
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections

^[5]

Single sculls

Pos	Athlete	Time
1	Mervyn Wood	7:46.8
2	Tony Rowe	7:54.0
3	Ian Stephen	8:04.0
4	Tristan Hegglun

Double sculls

• Only three entries

Pos	Athlete	Time
1	Mervyn Wood & Murray Riley	7:22
2	Joe Schneider & Des Simonson	7:32
3	Ken Tinegate & Jack Brown	7:39

Coxless pair

• Only two entries

Pos	Athlete	Time
1	Wal Lambert & Jack Webster	7:58
2	David Gould & Humphrey Gould	8:10

Coxed four

• Only two entries

Pos	Athlete	Time
1	Ted Johnson, John O'Brien, Bill James, Bill Carroll, Colin Johnstone (cox)	7:17.2
2	Leslie Montgomery, Erwin Elder, Cecil Winkworth, Kenneth Gee, Kevin Fox (cox)	7:24.0

Eights

• Only three entries

Pos	Athlete	Time
1	Alan Brown, Bruce Goswell, Edward Pain, Eric Longley, Peter Holmes a Court, Phil Cayzer, Bob Tinning, Ross Selman, James Barnes (cox)	6:27
2	Bruce Culpan, Don Rowlands, Edwin Smith, Grahame Jarratt, Kerry Ashby, Murray Ashby, Thomas Engel, William Tinnock, Donald Adam (cox)	6:27.5
3	Tony Butcher, Hank Rushmere, Michael Lapage, Patrick Bradley, Peter de Giles, Peter Kirkpatrick, Dickie Burnell, William Windham, Jack Dearlove (cox)	6:40

References

1. "The Fourth British Empire Games" . Ireland's Saturday Night. 9 July 1949. Retrieved 13 September 2025– via British Newspaper Archive.
2. Churchman & Hurst 2001, p. 106. sfn error: no target: CITEREFChurchmanHurst2001 (help)
3. "Medal Standings 1950". Commonwealth Games Federation. Archived from the original on 29 October 2021. Retrieved 13 September 2025.
4. "Commonwealth Games Medallists - Rowing". GBR Athletics. Retrieved 13 September 2025.
5. "Full results from Auckland" . Manchester Evening News. 6 February 1950. Retrieved 13 September 2025– via British Newspaper Archive.