| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Malcolm William Batten | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 12 March 1964 (age 59) Launceston, Tasmania, Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Years active | 1979–1991 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Rowing | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | North Esk RC Commercial Rowing Club Mercantile Rowing Club RMIT Rowing Club | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Malcolm William Batten [1] (born 12 March 1964) is an Australian former state and national champion, World Champion, Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medal-winning rower.
Batten was born in Tasmania and commenced his rowing career in 1979 as a coxswain with the North Esk Rowing Club in Launceston. He rowed for a season in 1982 with the Tweed Heads Rowing Club prior to moving to Brisbane and joining the Commercial Rowing Club. [2]
He was one of the first Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holders in 1985 and held full AIS scholarships from 1985 to 1988. He moved to Melbourne in 1988 and joined the Mercantile Rowing Club. In 1988 he was one of the founders of the RMIT Rowing Club. [2]
Wearing club colours but racing in AIS combinations Batten competed for national titles at the Australian Rowing Championships in pairs and fours from 1986. He won the Australian national title in AIS coxless four in 1987 and 1988. [3] He stroked AIS eights to victory in Queensland state championships in 1988, 1989 and 1990 with that 1988 crew also winning the New South Wales state championship that year. [2]
Batten competed twice at the Australian Rowing Championships in the men's Interstate Eight-Oared Championship – the King's Cup. He stroked the Queensland King's Cup eight in 1988 and he raced in the victorious Victorian crew of 1990. [4]
Batten's first national representative selection was to the 1985 Match des Seniors in Banyoles, Spain – the equivalent at the time of today's World Rowing U23 Championships. Batten stroked the Australian men's eight to a silver medal. [5] That same crew represented Australia in the men's eight selected for the 1985 Trans-Tasman U/23 regatta held on Lake Ruataniwha in New Zealand. [6]
Batten's first senior representative selection was to 1986 World Rowing Championships in Nottingham, England. He rowed in the two seat of the victorious Australian men's eight. It was Australia's first and only World Championship title in the men's eight. [7] That same year at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, in that same crew Batten won gold in the Australian men's VIII. [8]
At the 1987 World Rowing Championships in Copenhagen Batten was again in the two seat of Australian eight. That crew placed fourth. [9]
For the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Batten was beaten out for his seat in the Australian men's eight by South Australian rower Hamish McLachlan. Batten and Sam Patten were selected in the squad as reserves for the eight and qualified a coxless pair. They raced in heats at the Seoul Olympics but were eliminated in the repechage. [10]
His final national representative racing was as the stroke of the men's eight for the 1991 World Rowing Championships in Vienna. They finished tenth. [9]
Following competitive retirement Batten coached at St Catherine's School, Toorak from 1992 to 1994. Since 2011 he has been the president of Mercantile Rowing Club. [2]
He is a partner and managing director of the Melbourne headquartered international construction business Cockram Construction. Since 2017 that company has been part owned by the Japanese international firm Kajima. [11]
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.
Peter Thomas AntonieOAM is an Australian former rower. He is an Olympic and Commonwealth games gold medallist and world champion. He is regarded as one of Australia's greatest ever rowers figuring in senior representative squads consistently from 1977 to 1996 and representing Australia on eighteen occasions at three Olympics and fifteen World Rowing Championships. He competed at the highest levels as both a sculler and a sweep oarsman, in both lightweight and open divisions, across all boat classes. He won twenty-nine Australian national championship titles in his career.
Michael Scott McKay, OAM, known as Mike McKay, is an Australian rower, a four-time world champion, a four-time Olympic medallist and Commonwealth Games gold medallist. From 1990 to 1998 he was a member of Australia's prominent world class crew – the coxless four known as the Oarsome Foursome.
Megan Leanne Marcks, OAM is an Australian former national, Olympic and world champion rower. She is an Olympic and World Champion in the coxless pair who represented Australia at the Olympics in 1992 and 1996.
Andrew Dollman Cooper is a former Australian Olympic Champion and World Champion rower. He is a national champion, dual Olympian and two-time World Champion who achieved success as a member of Australia's "Oarsome Foursome" in 1991 and 1992.
Paul Reedy is an Australian former rower. He is a dual Olympian, an Olympic and Commonwealth Games silver medalist who competed over a seventeen-year period at the elite level. He was a fourteen-time Australian national champion across both sculling and sweep-oared boats and then coached six Australian crews to national championship titles. He later coached at the London Rowing Club and was appointed as British national Head Coach from 2009. He took Great Britain's lightweight women's sculling crews to Olympic and World Championship gold medals in 2012 and 2016.
Samuel Patten is a former Australian World Champion rower and Olympic medallist. His professional career has been as an orthopaedic surgeon specialising in hip and knee surgery and based in Melbourne. From 1990 to 1991 he was a member of Australia's prominent world class crew – the coxless four known as the Oarsome Foursome.
Stephen Frederick Evans OAM is an Australian former national champion, world champion, dual Olympian and Olympic medal winning rower.
Robyn Grey-Gardner is an Australian former eight-time national champion, national representative, Olympic and Commonwealth Games medal winning rower. She won Australian championships in all three sweep-oared women's rowing events - the coxless pair, the coxless four and in the eight.
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Paul Anthony Thompson MBE is an Australian elite level rowing coach and former rower. As a rower he was an Australian under-age champion, won a silver medal at the 1985 U23 World Championships and rowed in senior King's Cup eights for both South Australia and New South Wales. He has coached Australian and British crews to World Championship titles and Olympic medals including taking Kate Slatter and Megan Still to Australia's first women's Olympic rowing gold at Atlanta 1996. By 2012 he was Great Britain's head coach for women and lightweights and took British crews to three gold and two silver medals at London 2012. Since 2022 he has been Rowing Australia's High Performance Director.
Dale Caterson is an Australian former national champion, World Champion, Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medal winning rowing coxswain. He is Australia's first World Champion coxswain, having steered the 1986 World Championship men's eight to victory.
Marcus Andrew "Mark" Doyle is an Australian former national champion, World Champion, Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medal-winning rower.
James Galloway OAM is an Australian former national champion, World Champion and Commonwealth Games gold medal-winning rower.
Brian Richardson is an Australian former rower and rowing coach. He competed at the national elite level over a fifteen-year period representing both South Australian and Victoria. He was a representative at three world championships and at the 1976 Montreal and the 1980 Moscow Olympics. In a twenty-three year coaching career, he held national head coaching roles in both Canada and Australia from 1993 to 2008 and personally coached national crews to twelve world championship or Olympic medals.
David Palfreyman is an Australian former coxswain, rower and rowing coach. He was a national champion three times as a coxswain and twice as a rower and won a gold medal at the 1962 Commonwealth Games.
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Andrew Cox is an Australian former rowing coxswain and former Sydney first grade rugby union head coach. As a cox he was an U23 Australian national champion and later steered Australia's senior lightweight eight at the 1987 World Rowing Championships.
Full name: Malcolm William Batten
