| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birth name | Shane Joseph O'Brien [1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 27 September 1960 Auckland, New Zealand | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 203 cm (6 ft 8 in) [1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 96 kg (212 lb) [1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Rowing | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | West End Rowing Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Shane Joseph O'Brien (born 27 September 1960) is a former New Zealand rower who won an Olympic gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, USA.
O'Brien was born in 1960 in Auckland, New Zealand. [1] He received his secondary school education at Mount Albert Grammar School from 1974 to 1978, where he was prefect and captain of the rowing team. [2]
Along with Les O'Connell, Conrad Robertson and Keith Trask he won gold in the coxless four at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. O'Brien also competed at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland, winning a silver medal in the coxless four and a bronze medal in the eights. [3] At the 1985 World Rowing Championships at Hazewinkel in Belgium, he came fourth with the coxless four. [4] He is listed as New Zealand Olympian number 482. [5] His three medals were stolen in a burglary in 2006. [6]
O'Brien is a trained teacher. In the late 1980s, he went back to his old school to teach there. [7] He also taught at an intermediate school in Auckland. [5] He moved to England in the early 1990s where he worked as a teacher and coached rowing at Latymer Upper School, Hammersmith. He worked closely with the Latymer Upper School boatman at the time, Coyne T. Mullen. In 1999, he went on to Shiplake College, on the River Thames south of Henley-on-Thames; he was the deputy headmaster there. [8] One of the Shiplake College rowers who had trained under him, Will Satch, went to win Olympic bronze at the 2012 Summer Olympics (coxless pair) and gold four years later (eight). [9] Before he left Shiplake College, a new coxless four boat purchased by the school was named for O'Brien. [8] He became headmaster of Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai, UAE) in mid-2011, and director in September of 2019. [8] [10]
Shiplake College is an independent boarding and day school in Shiplake, by the River Thames, just outside Henley-on-Thames, England. The school, with 520 pupils, takes boys from 11–18 and girls from 16–18. From September 2023 girls will join Year 7 as the school transitions to become fully co-educational by 2027.
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Alexander (Steve) Purnell is an Australian rower. He is an Olympic and national champion who has represented at underage and senior world championships. In 2018 in an Australian eight, he won the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta. He rowed in the bow seat of the Australian men's coxless four to a gold medal victory at the Tokyo Olympics.
Joseph "Jack" O'Brien is an Australian representative rower. He is an Australian national champion, has represented at under-aged and senior world championships and won two gold medals at World Rowing Cups in the 2019 international representative season. He rowed in the Australian men's eight at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Kirstyn Moana Goodger is a New Zealand rower. Originally from Auckland and now based in Cambridge, she took up rowing in 2005. She has won one international medal for New Zealand – a silver at the 2009 World Rowing Junior Championships in France. From 2011 to 2014, she rowed for the Washington Huskies while studying oceanography at the University of Washington. Upon her return to New Zealand, she joined the Wairau Rowing Club and is one of the premier rowers who belongs to the Central Rowing Performance Centre. Goodger has been an elite rower for the national squad since 2017. She has represented her country at several World Rowing Cups, the 2017 and the 2019 World Rowing Championships. At the latter regatta, she managed to qualify the women's quad scull boat category for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She was chosen as one of ten rowers for the New Zealand women's eight and travelled to the Games with the team. The woman's eight squad would come away with a silver medal in the eight at the 2020 games. Goodger has won four premier national titles in the women's eight. She worked as a scientist and engineer for consultancy Beca in their ports and coastal team.
